Word: frenchness
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...many actresses follow from the movie set to recording studio is lined with misplaced ambitions and audible trauma - remember Lindsay Lohan's and Scarlett Johansson's disastrous efforts? But Gainsbourg has made the transition effortlessly. Her 2006 album 5:55, a collaboration with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, topped the French charts, with critics praising her as a true chanteuse. For her latest album IRM - which will be released on Jan. 26 in the U.S. and most of Europe - she teamed up with eclectic alt-rocker Beck. "He wrote all of the music and lyrics, but we really had an exchange...
...variety of different musical styles - blues, electronica, rock and folk. And Gainsbourg proves she's more than just his muse. Although her vocals sometimes sound like mere whispers, she conveys intense emotion throughout the album. On "Le Chat du Café des Artistes," - the only song sung entirely in French - her dark intonations complement the song's haunting strings. On "Voyage," she channels Enya at a drum circle - and somehow manages to give the song a spiritual quality. (See pictures of Paris expanding...
...most intimate track on the album is "IRM" - that's French for an MRI scan - which pulsates with clanging industrial beats. In 2007, Gainsbourg suffered a brain hemorrhage in a waterskiing accident and surgeons had to drill through her skull to save her. Despite recovering fully, she insisted on undergoing MRI scans for several months after the accident. "The sounds inside the machine are nasty to hear," she says. "They're brutal and aggressive, and rhythmically very chaotic. But they're also musical." The lyrics on "IRM" address her attempts to exorcise her medical demons: "Leave my head demagnetized/ Tell...
...what actually happens in the video? The question is, what doesn't happen? The French team and Sparks swagger in the desert to mystic bedouin music, dressed like a cross between MGMT and New Boyz in a Godard film. There is a closeup of the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign. There is a collective swagger into Diddy's Vegas haunt, Vanity Nightclub, in which the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy appears to lick a fat stack of poker chips. Around the 2:40 mark Jadakiss raps an elegant ode to the eponymous beverage, "the best premium vodka ever...
There is, of course, stiff competition. Neighboring Ecuador already has a jump on Peru, pushing for its "national" or arriba bean to be granted geographic indication - or certified origin - just like French Champagne. There are five chocolatiers in Ecuador marketing chocolate based on origin and organic production. They have USDA organic certificates and can be found in supermarket chains in the U.S. Peruvian chocolate producers have not gotten that far. "Our job is to get the word out," says Bocangel. "This visit [by the Steinberg delegation] is important for us to do that...