Monsieur Gerard wrote:

>PS : about french stuff, please forget a few seconds Gainsbourg, Gall and
>Bardot, try Michel Polnareff, Ronnie Bird, Jacques Dutronc. For 
>Gainsbourg, trust
>me, the best stuff is "Melody Nelson" and "l'homme à la tete de chou"
>cheers

Ah, that's nice to hear.

>Then Jean-Marc wrote:

>I second that. Someone also wrote about Jacques Brel. His music was not pop.
>Brel was a poet and you won't dig him if you cannot understand french.

So true. There's so much great stuff that just escapes non-francos 
(*and* a lot of francophones, frankly)...Brel, Brassens, Ferré, Les 
Frères Jacques, Boris Vian, Beart, Reggiani...it's just a whole 
different aesthetic. Still, Marc Almond seems to have a good grasp of 
some of these guys...his Absinthe album tackles some good "poet" 
stuff. I still think his Brel album is a failure, though. I'll stick 
with Scott Walker for *that* material.

Oddly enough, the French *do* get Bob Dylan.

And, dammit, I'm so sick of ole Serge. He did some excellent early 
work, but most of his career, methinks, was just so much farting in a 
bag. One of the best examples of The Emperor's New Clothes I've ever 
seen and heard. Comic Strip? Eek.

Rhetorical question: what's worse, a Frenchman who wants to be Tom 
Waits, or an Englishman who wants to be Serge Gainsbourg? (I'm 
thinking Arthur H and Momus, but there's other candidates, and lots 
of Americans and at least one Australian who want to be Leonard 
Cohen...)

Richard