Aux Armes Et Caetera 1979 Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot

• 1Javanaise Remake03:08
• 2Aux Armes Et Caetera03:06
• 3Les Locataires02:10
• 4Des Laids Des Laids02:37
• 5Brigade Des Stups01:58
• 6Vieille Canaille03:02
• 7Lola Rastaquouère03:41
• 8Relax Baby Be Cool02:31
• 9Daisy Temple03:55
• 10Eau Et Gaz A Tous Les Etages00:36
• 11Pas Long Feu02:37
• 12Marilou Reggae Dub03:48
• Total Runtime33:09

Info for Aux Armes Et Caetera 1979

Gainsbourg’s 1979 release Aux Armes Et Caetera, an album entirely recorded in Kingston with legendary reggae musicians, takes French song where it had never geographically or musically gone before. In retrospect, we might be tempted to dismiss this cover of the French national anthem; after all, Gainsbourg had already borrowed other musical genres like jazz and disco. Yet, while Gainsbourg’s previous work had earned him recognition as a major innovator of French song somewhat because of his playful and provocative eccentricities, this song was met with a scathing, overtly anti-Semitic and nationalist backlash. Gainsbourg’s play with genres (national anthem, French song, and reggae) touched on sour spots of French identity.

Serge Gainsbourg, vocals
Radcliffe 'Dougie' Bryan, guitar
Robbie 'Tights' Lyn, piano
Ansel Collins, Hammond Organ
Robbie Shakespeare, bass
Lowell 'Sly' Dunbar, drums
Michael 'Mao' Chung, guitar, piano
Isiah 'Sticky' Thompson, percussion
I Threes, backing vocals
Judy Mowatt, backing vocals
Marcia Griffiths, backing vocals
Rita Marley, backing vocals

Engineered by Geoffrey Chung
Mastered by André Perriat
Produced by Philippe Lerichomme

Recorded and mixed at Dynamic Sounds Studio, Kingston, Jamaïca, 12 to 24 January 1979.
'Aux Armes Et Cætera' inspired from Rouget de Lisle 'La Marseillaise'.

Digitally remastered.

Serge Gainsbourg
was the dirty old man of popular music; a French singer/songwriter and provocateur notorious for his voracious appetite for alcohol, cigarettes, and women, his scandalous, taboo-shattering output made him a legend in Europe but only a cult figure in America, where his lone hit "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus" stalled on the pop charts — fittingly enough — at number 69.

Born Lucien Ginzberg in Paris on April 2, 1928, his parents were Russian Jews who fled to France following the events of the 1917 Bolshevik uprising. After studying art and teaching, he turned to painting before working as a bar pianist on the local cabaret circuit. Soon he was tapped to join the cast of the musical Milord L'Arsoille, where he reluctantly assumed a singing role; self-conscious about his rather homely appearance, Gainsbourg initially wanted only to carve out a niche as a composer and producer, not as a performer.

Still, he made his recording debut in 1958 with the album Du Chant a la Une; while strong efforts like 1961's L'Etonnant Serge Gainsbourg and 1964's Gainsbourg Confidentiel followed, his jazz-inflected solo work performed poorly on the charts, although compositions for vocalists ranging from Petula Clark to Juliette Greco to Dionne Warwick proved much more successful. In the late '60s, he befriended the actress Brigitte Bardot, and later became her lover; with Bardot as his muse, Gainsbourg's lushly arranged music suddenly became erotic and delirious, and together, they performed a series of duets — including "Bonnie and Clyde," "Harley Davidson," and "Comic Strip" — celebrating pop culture icons.

Gainsbourg's affair with Bardot was brief, but its effects were irrevocable: after he became involved with constant companion Jane Birkin, they recorded the 1969 duet "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus," a song he originally penned for Bardot complete with steamy lyrics and explicit heavy breathing. Although banned in many corners of the globe, it reached the top of the charts throughout Europe, and grew in stature to become an underground classic later covered by performers ranging from Donna Summer to Ray Conniff.

Gainsbourg returned in 1971 with Histoire de Melody Nelson, a dark, complex song cycle which signalled his increasing alienation from modern culture: drugs, disease, suicide and misanthropy became thematic fixtures of his work, which grew more esoteric, inflammatory, and outrageous with each passing release. Although Gainsbourg never again reached the commercial success of his late-'60s peak, he remained an imposing and controversial figure throughout Europe, where he was both vilified and celebrated for his shocking behavior, which included burning 500 francs on a live television broadcast and recording a reggae version of the sacred "La Marseillaise."

Gainsbourg also created a furor with the single "Lemon Incest," a duet with his daughter, the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. In addition, he posed in drag for the cover of 1984's Love on the Beat, a collection of songs about male hustlers, and made sexual advances towards Whitney Houston on a live TV broadcast. Along with his pop music oeuvre, Gainsbourg scored a number of films, and also directed and appeared in a handful of features, most notably 1976's Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus, which starred Birkin and Andy Warhol mainstay Joe Dallesandro. He died on March 2, 1991.

This album contains no booklet.