Personnel: Serge Gainsbourg (vocals, guitar, piano).

Liner Note Author: Elisabeth Vincentelli.

Recording information: Blanqui Studio (12/1959-05/1975); DMS Studio (12/1959-05/1975); Eurpoa-Sonor Studio (12/1959-05/1975); Studio 92 (12/1959-05/1975).

Directors: Jean-Pierre Sabar; Alain Goraguer; Michel Colombier.

Editor: Avec L'Aimable.

Photographers: Jacques Aubert; S.O.B.

Unknown Contributor Role: Jean-Pierre Haie.

Arrangers: Jean-Pierre Sabar; Alain Goraguer; Michel Colombier.

A French craze for exotic rhythms and dances like the cha-cha and the mambo inspired Serge Gainsbourg to explore Latin and Caribbean rhythms at the outset of his career; Couleur Cafe collects 20 of these beat-driven recordings, which span from 1959 to work from as late as 1974. More than his jazz performances of the same period, the earliest songs on the set presage the direction taken on his pop records; in addition to the distinctly snotty attitude which pervades cuts like "Laissez-Moi Tranquille" and "L'Anthracite," the nine tracks taken from the 1964 recording Gainsbourg Percussions innovatively embrace African rhythms while focusing on the thematic concerns (specifically cigarettes, American culture and young girls) of his seminal later work. ~ Jason Ankeny

When not singing in the saloons and salons of the Rive Gauche or playing the bad guy in a serious of ludicrously bad Italian films, Serge Gainsbourg also found the time to dabble in the cha-chas and mambos which had swept Europe and America in the previous decade. However while most of the dance crazes were meant as one-offs, Gainsbourg took his excursions into Caribbean rhythms as seriously (and as comically) as all of his other stylistic experiments, and continued to record them sporadically up until the 1970's.

Of course some of them sound silly now (such as New York USA and Erotico-tico), but most of them still bump and grind like Desi Arnaz on a bender. The children's chorus on "Couleur Cafe" lends a moment of innocence not usually associated with Gainsbourg's usually adult songwriting; and "Baudelaire" and "Cha Cha Cha du Loup" are sure-fire party-starters at the next meeting of the international hipsters of the world convention. Great music either for smoking a cigarette and sighing, or forming a conga-line in a mosh pit.