Serge Gainsbourg Les 100 Plus Belles Chansons

This mammoth five-disc set is a wide-ranging overview of Serge Gainsbourg's career as a songwriter, composer, and arranger. It also showcases his ability to make actual singers out of actresses and models – there are a few duets here with Brigitte Bardot, and others. Those who are encountering Gainsbourg for the first time will no doubt be intimidated by this set, it is a lovely package that moves basically in chronological order; but the three-disc De Gainsbourg à Gainsbarre set is more focused and a lot more affordable.

A celebrity of some importance in France, Eddy Mitchell began his career in the late '50 with the rock & roll group Les Chaussettes Noires ("the Black Socks"). Mitchell went solo after a few hits with the group in the early '60s, and over the ensuing decades embraced several styles of American music.

Although not the owner of conventional high-level vocal skills, Bardot invested her frivolous songs with a contagious sense of playful fun, and a refusal to take the music or herself too seriously. Certainly some of the tunes – and their breathy delivery – capitalize on her iconic sex kitten persona. But the guileless joy she projects is reminiscent of some of the early work by France Gall (one of the finest '60s French pop singers), though Bardot's voice is less girlish and more adult in tone.

Ce témoignage du concert triomphal qu'elle a donné à l'Olympia confirme, si besoin était, que Vanessa Paradis est bel et bien une artiste avec laquelle il faut compter, tant elle passe l'épreuve du feu avec une prestance aussi gracieuse qu'originale. De sa voix délicieusement frêle et agréablement troublante, elle égrène les plus belles perles de son répertoire.