HOT TRACKS LISA ROBINSON

C'est si bon.

Actress, singer, and femme fatale Charlotte Gainsbourg's forthcoming CD, IRM, was produced by Beck, who years ago said one of his favorite albums was Histoire de Melody Nelson, the piece de resistance recorded by Charlotte’s parents, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Over the past year, Charlotte traveled to Los Angeles for the pas de deux with Beck, and, she says, entre nous, “I first met him before I did my last record with [producers] Air. The idea of working together began two years ago, then things just happened as I came to L.A. to start on a few songs.” The result: an enigmatic, varied, and sonically complex tour de force that features Charlotte’s whispery vocals in both French and English. “Beck has such unlimited creativity,” she says. “He could go in every possible direction. He did everything; I had to react to what he was playing, and at first my ideas weren’t clear. But 1 was able to live with the first songs for a while, and then, coming back for the second session, the direction

and ideas became more precise. I was able to involve myself completely.”

Despite all the great French chanteuses—Edith Piaf, Frangoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot—and the incomparable Serge Gainsbourg, French rock and pop has never really traveled well. But now, with their sophisticated fifth studio album, Love 2, electronic-pop duo Air (Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, who produced Charlotte Gainsbourg’s last CD, 5:55, and who’ve done movie music for Sofia Coppola) have become the ambassadors of French pop. It’s been a good year, too, for French synth-rock group Phoenix (whose lead singer, Thomas Mars, has a child with Coppola); Air’s former backup band sings in English, grew up in Versailles, and has created a frisson with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Also, there’s the pop singer Yelle (nee Julie Budet) and the hot Plastiscines, one of the young Parisian bands referred to as “les bebes rockers,” whose diverse influences are the Libertines, the White Stripes, and the Kinks.

Tout va bien, n'est-cepas?

ith a new haircut but the same gorgeous, languid voice, on her new album (The Fall),Norah Jones collaborates with Ryan Adams, Marc Ribot, and Joey Waronker (who plays drums with Air and Beck). Check out Beck's official Web site (beck .com) for his Record Club; he, Nigel Godrich, Devendra Banhart,

MGMT, and others have re-recorded songs from The Velvet Underground and Nico and Songs of Leonard Cohen, with other favorite discs to come. R.E.M/sLive at the Olympia is a double CD from the band's 2007 Dublin performances. Much-talkedabout New York artist Ussy Trullie releases her debut EP, Self-Taught Learner, with four new tracks. Dream Delay is the latest CD from one of our best singer-songwriters, David Garza.Between My Head and the Sky is from Yoko Ono Plastic

Ono Band. And both Bob Dylan and Pope Benedict XVI have albums coming out just in time for Christmas.

Happy Anniversary:The Doors' 1970 New York City concerts are documented in a six-CD boxed set, Live in New York. David Bowie'sSpace Oddity has a 40th-anniversary edition with added tracks, digital remastering, and previously unreleased demos. The Rolling Stones release multiple CDs to observe the 40th anniversary of their 1969 Madison Square Garden concert and a re-digitized, live Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! And the 40th-anniversary edition of Frank Sinatra'sMy Way kicks off a string of reissues from the Universal Music Group of 38 Sinatracatalogue albums.

When you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you know what life's about.