Charlotte Sings for Love

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Everything I Cannot See

Charlotte Gainsbourg

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Charlotte Gainsbourg.  You know that name, yes?  Perhaps you fancy her more famous papa, he of the salty chansons and the Ford Mustangs?  Perhaps you are French?  Or maybe you remember Miss Charlotte as the object of brotherly love in Andrew Birkin’s perversely intriguing “Cement Garden”  Or…you have no idea what I’m talking about and frankly, would prefer it if I refrained from punctuation molestation and dangerously stretched sentences (sorry).  Regardless of your familiarity with young Gainsbourg’s curriculum vitae, it’s the music that’s in question here.  5:55 is not Gainsbourg’s debut album.  In 1986 she released Charlotte Forever, a collection of songs written by Daddy G, including the controversial “Lemon Incest,” which alluded to a father-daughter sexual relationship.  The album achieved Gainsbourg ample success in her native , but hardly penetrated the front doors of mainstream American pop.  5:55 is a solid effort, not so much a party crashing entrance as a breathy “hello , I’m Charlotte, and my voice will probably get you laid.”  And it probably will.  It’s that kind of music, much like how Air is the Marvin Gaye of a vintage Chucks generation.  This isn’t to say that Gainsbourg’s style lacks maturity.  Don’t let the sweet voice fool you; her lyrics are quietly edgy, a cool girl’s diary set to music.  In “Everything I Cannot See,” she sighs that “you are everything I ever wanted,” and yet acknowledges that “you know I must leave here / You must let me stand or fall.”  Not quite Girl Power! but certainly an off-brand of neo-feminism for bespectacled daydreamers and Sophia Coppola cinephiles.  Lyrically, one of Gainsbourg’s strongest tracks is “Little Monsters,” a blithely sinister ode to the playground mischief that children never really grow out of.  Fusing romantic ardor with bittersweet emoting, transposed across a bucolic synth landscape, 5:55 is certainly comparable to Serge fanboys Air, who, incidentally, were contributors to the album.  It helps to have friends in the “biz” (as those of us au courant of today’s fashionable music lexicon call the ‘business’), and it’s even more helpful to be the daughter of French pop royalty; but details aside, Gainsbourg has managed to create an album that at once sounds timeless and fresh.  Papa would be proud.