French singer, poet and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg is the ultimate musical shape shifter. He started off playing jazz piano in the fifties, wrote teeny pop hits for Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot in the sixties, released the unsurpassed rock opera Histoire De Melody Nelson in 1971 and moved on to sing reggae and funk. His struggle for excellence was the only constant throughout his career, and he made the French language sound more musical than anybody else.