L'histoire de Melody Nelson

French icon Serge Gainsbourg comes across as a sleazy, unrepentant Leonard Cohen on this 1971 concept album about Gainsbourg’s erotic fantasies towards a very young Melody Nelson. Arranger-conductor Jean-Claude Vannier outdoes himself with a cinematic drama that equals the dripping lust of its narrator. The unusually funky grooves and slashing electric guitars occasionally catapult Gainsbourg into what sounds like an early-‘70s disco scene about to spiral out of control. Performed completely in French, “Melody” and “Cargo Culte” are two differing seven minute epics — the first sweeping and vast, the second, quiet and meandering. Elsewhere Gainsbourg needs less than two minutes to get his points across as the quick successes of “Ballade de Melody Nelson” and “Valse de Melody” prove out. In these mini-dramas, where strings and thumping bass push against Gainsbourg’s decadent cooing and whispers, one senses an entire range of emotion beyond the usual pop song. Histoire is an absolutely bizarre masterpiece that wears its bygone era well.