Therion: Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son

While I was researching an article about Serge Gainsbourg for the  Culturethèque website of the Institut Français, I came across some wonderful clips that I thought deserved a mention here. They didn't really fit into the scope of the article I was writing, but certainly were good enough to highlight here.

You can read the article, with a huge selection of videos of Serge and others, on the Culturethèque website here >

This version of the song Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son by Swedish metal act Therion was one such clip.

The band take the track and re-interpret it as an operatic dark cabaret number, with additional metal muscle.

Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son was of course the winner of the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest, written by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by France Gall as the entry for Luxembourg.

Therion have been around since 1987, founded by guitarist Christofer Johnsson. While now known more as a symphonic metal act, they were originally more of a death metal act. I was hugely impressed by their Beyond Sanctorum album when I heard it a few years after it came out, but didn't hear much of their subsequent releases.

It's a long journey from melodic Scandinavian death metal to operatic cabaret covers and I think I've got quite a bit of catching up to do.

This version of the track comes from their album Les Fleurs Du Mal, their fifteenth, which was released in September last year.

The album is a collection of covers of French pop and chanson songs including Gainsbourg's Initials BB and a cover of his Les Sucettes.