(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover / Jade Magnolia Boulton / Dev Hynes)
At the peak of the 2000s indie explosion, one band that enjoyed heavy rotation on the era’s MTV2 was Test Icicles. Formed in East London, their choppy blend of synths and dance-punk fizz showed little signs of Dev Hynes‘ future artistic trajectory.
Jumping from proto-new rave to folk-infused psych-pop under the solo Lightspeed Champion moniker to the electronica-tinged R&B of his Blood Orange project, Hynes found himself as one of pop and the alternative world’s biggest names in only a few short, dizzying years.
Such a deft musical hopscotch must be fuelled by an eclectic record collection. Yet, when contributing to an NME feature exploring music’s celebrated cult albums, Hynes averted post-punk, folk or soulful R&B that formed the guts of his main projects and reached into the vaults of French chanson lothario Serge Gainsbourg’s wieldy discography, selecting 1987’s You’re Under Arrest as his favourite buried gem, a record that divided fans with its embrace of contemporary pop trends.
“This was Gainsbourg’s last studio album before he died,” Hynes told NME. “Gainsbourg always adapted to the times; here he went deeper into dance and tight ‘80s funk-type grooves with his songs. On top of this, he had refined his songwriting to its most articulate—the lyrics were surreal and very tongue-in-cheek, more so than usual. Then the melodies were all so precise; he recorded his last two records using amazing session musicians, interestingly enough, which seems to be the reason most people are not a fan of his later work. The word sterile gets tossed about frequently”.
It’s debatable as to whether You’re Under Arrest is “sterile”, but Gainsbourg’s final album before his death in 1991 stands with less timeless cool as 1968’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ or his Histoire de Melody Nelson opus.
Following a loose concept involving a drug-addicted girl called Samantha and the protagonist’s search in the dark streets of New York, Gainsbourg scores his Paul Schrader-inspired tale with a glossy canvass of funk, new wave, synth washes, and even a touch of hip-hop with current E Street Band vocal choir member Curtis King Jr stepping up to the mic for some rap attacks on the album’s title-track opener.
While Gainsbourg had always delighted in testing the boundaries of good taste and high morals with his overtly sexual pop numbers and innuendo-laced lyricism, enduring cuts like ‘Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus‘ gave way to queasy Lolita motifs later in life, culminating in the creepy horror show of 1984’s ‘Lemon Incest’ with his pre-teen daughter Charlotte, replete with paedophilic undertones and a skin-crawling video of the two in bed together with an air of lecherous amorousness.
You’re Under Arrest‘s loose narrative does little to rehabilitate Gainsbourg’s standing after ‘Lemon Incest’s rightful critical excoriation, later detailing the protagonist’s implied attempt at a relationship with Samantha—’Suck Baby Suck’ lyrically presenting the unnamed lech selecting Tex Avery and Donald Duck videos to watch with his ‘girlfriend’—before tiring of her heroin problem and jumping ship to the French Foreign Legion, having a one-night stand with a fellow Légionnaire and ditching them too.
With a shoehorned ‘don’t do drugs kids’ message tacked at the end, it’s hard to glean exactly what You’re Under Arrest‘s fundamental point is other than Gainsbourg’s chance to indulge in masquerading private fantasies of minor abuse and exploitation as a romantic meeting of souls in an extraordinary dramatic clash. Whatever the sincerity and merits of You’re Under Arrest‘s story, Gainsbourg survived the 1980s pop scene along with prior LP Love on the Beat with a parting finale that aptly bookended a career unconcerned with respected posterity or elder-statesman legacies.
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