Aux armes et caetera

Description

100% Reggae, recorded by Gainsbourg in Kingston with big names like Sly & Robbie and Rita Marley's I Threes, this album is his biggest reinterpretation of a genre. An enormous (finally) success, it gave its author a new aura among young people as well as new momentum to his stage performances.Breaking from his 70s concept albums, it is certainly less musically developed, even if its reggae is of excellent quality. But the juxtaposition of the French talk-overs and the Jamaican groove creates an atmosphere of brilliant nonchalance.Nonchalant, yet incredibly subversive, is his reggae cover of "La Marseillaise," which caused such a stir. Here, Gainsbourg amplifies his "dirty and unshaven" image, which a certain part of France associates with him, giving us "Eau et gaz à tous les étages," "Les locataires," or "Des laids des laids." He feigns a thuggish persona, with a hint of Javanese slang, speaking for the first time about drugs ("Brigade des stups") or fighting ("Relax baby be cool"), but without actually engaging in them, just adding small impressionistic touches to an album entirely dedicated to reinventing his image.A cover of the American song "You rascal you," already released in France in '51, which Gainsbourg would later re-interpret in a jazz big band version with Eddy Mitchell. Sex is still present, but without the innocence of lolitas and with a more explicit metaphor in "Lola rastaquouère" (even though "we take off vibrating towards African skies" just like for a "Transit à Marilou"). And then, at 51, time was running out; Gainsbourg, not yet Gainsbarre, wouldn't "last long" here. Finally (another reference to "L'homme à la tête de chou"), the logical cover of the song that inspired this new reggae direction with "Marilou reggae dub."The verses, less finely crafted here, strike us more with the little scenes they humorously and coolly suggest. The whole, always extremely balanced, makes the repetitive aspect of reggae go completely unnoticed: Gainsbourg's most "pleasant" album.Paula Haddad - Copyright 2017 Music Story