Serge Gainsbourg/Biography/1992-today

1995

1 February: Premiere of Jean Becker's movie Elisa in France. It is dedicated "à Serge Gainsbourg". Marie (Vanessa Paradis) has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa commited suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Suddenly she wants to unravel her past and find her Jewish father Jacques Lébovitch alias Desmoulins (Gérard Depardieu) which she blames for her mothers death. As she finds out he was a pianist and wrote one single called "Elisa" before he left her mother - this is told to Marie by a Gitanes smoker (Philippe Léotard) who acts like some kind of Serge himself: he plays the piano while he's talking and smoking a lot. Later in the movie, Marie sees a piece of paper in her fathers shed. It says: "Rendre l'âme, d'accord, mais à qui?" And of course, Serge Gainsbourg's song "Elisa" is played at various occasions. But except of Miss Paradis' small tits there is really nothing in this film that could justify such blasphemy... However, in 1996 the song won a César for the best film music and more than two million people have seen the movie in France alone.

1997

The French groups Mumbly and Watoo Watoo release the Serge Gainsbourg song "Marilou sous la neige" [Snowflake version] on the tape Difpif parade (distributed through the PIFDIF French indiepop mailing-list).

1998

28 September: The English translation of Serge Gainsbourg's parabolic tale Evguénie Sokolov is for the first time published in the USA, by Tam Tam Books.

1999

12 March: Serge Gainsbourg party in Antwerp (Belgium) at the New Pacific. There are video projections and Gainsbourg songs.

• [Party homepage] - Pierre Elitair, Johan, Steven, Stef and Marijke and others present their MP3 dance remixes of famous Gainsbourg songs:
  • Timothy (03:40) Sea, shit and scum (gabber mix)
  • Stef and Marijke (03:29) No way babies (radio edit 1999)
  • Pierre and Dr. Disco (05:27) C'est formidable (chameleon mix '99)
  • King Kitsch (03:34) Initiales K. K. (touchy mix '99)
  • King Kitsch (03:22) Tu veux ou tu veux pas (core mix '99)
  • Robert Winston (03:11) GainsHarley (Swiss factor)

2000

2 March 2000: This site, "Serge Gainsbourg 1926-1991", is featured at Zapping (Club Internet) for just one day: "Sur ce site, une biographie du beau Serge, quelques articles, et surtout, les textes de ses chansons."

"Soirée Gainsbourg" 7 April 2000

7 April: Like every year, the "Soirée Gainsbourg" is held at the Café d'Anvers in Antwerpen. There is a live show by Vive la Fête with the bassist of the Belgian rock group Deus. Host DJs are Pierre Elitair and Louis Katorz.

May: Pussycats Records from Malaga (Spain) announce a sampler with Serge Gainsbourg cover versions to be released in autumn 2000.

15 May: Dancefloor producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï's debut album Production features a version of Serge Gainsbourgs "Cargo culte", entitled "V. I. (The last words she said before leaving)".

3 June: Robert Storm has "a dream in which the ghost of Gainsbourg came to meet me and gave me a CD single of his new music. There were two songs on the single. The first one was a lot like the songs on You're under arrest but there was a lot of female vocals, even more than Gainsbourg's own vocals. The second song sounded a lot like Metallica!"

July / August: The Face includes an interview with Madonna in which she says she was influenced by the songs Serge Gainsbourg wrote for Jane Birkin. Her new album Music contains a Charlotte Gainsbourg sample from the movie Cement garden.

2001

January: There is an article by Sylvie Simmons about Serge Gainsbourg in the magazine Mojo.

7 January: Among the "100 greatest singles" listed by British internet newspaper Guardian Unlimited there is "Je t'aime... moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin placed on number 88 with 525 votes. "Imagine" by John Lennon made number 1 with 3'628 votes.

February: The French site Comicsworld features the article Comic strip avec Gainsbourg with many pictures showing Serge, some of them drawn by French comic artists.

2 February: British newspaper Guardian's review supplement features the 3-pages-article "The eyes have it" about Serge Gainsbourg (plus front-cover photo), an excerpt from Sylvie Simmons' forthcoming book Serge Gainsbourg: a fistful of Gitanes, due in April.

13 February: The Serge Gainsbourg box set Gainsbourg forever is released. The set consists of 18 CDs, each with its original album cover (though only in CD size). The set also exists in vinyl. Unlike the old 9CD set, there are no B-sides and songs from soundtracks, just the albums. This is: you pay more money for less!

Dazed and Confused no. 75 contains what this British magazine calls "The Gainsbourg files": an article about Serge Gainsbourg plus an interview with Charlotte.

2 March: There is an article about Serge Gainsbourg in the French newspaper Libération.

3 March As an hommage to Serge Gainsbourg, at the Conservatoire Nantes a 25-piece-orchestra and 10 singers of the Cabaret Studio Nantes play unreleased arrangements written especially for this show, "Couleurs Gainsbourg".

17 March: There is a Gainsbourg special on Canadian TV station TV5.

7 April: Like every year, the association 5 voor 12 from Antwerpen organises the "Soirée Gainsbourg", this time in the hall Nieuwe Kaaiman. Invited is the garage group Dutronic which will play some Gainsbourg and 1960s covers.