Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg was born on 21 July 1971 into French pop royalty, the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress and singer Jane Birkin, and she was making records as a child: she sang with her father on "Lemon Incest" at 12 and cut a whole album with him at 15.

Then she went quiet as a singer for more than 20 years and spent them mostly in front of the camera, working with Lars von Trier more than once, picking up two César Awards and taking Best Actress at Cannes in 2009. When the music came back it came back grown up: 5:55, IRM, Stage Whisper and Rest, a run of albums that won over critics and buyers alike, and in 2018 the Victoires de la Musique named her female artist of the year.

Rest, released in 2017, is the one rock radio latched onto, via the slinky, glittering "Deadly Valentine". Her voice is the thing: breathy, close-miked, almost conversational, a whisper that manages to feel intimate and faintly unsettling at the same time, drifting over indie pop that never raises its voice to get your attention.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.