In a just published New York Magazine story on Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johanssen’s new Break Up album, the following sentence appears in the second paragraph:

In the early weeks of January 2007, the pair met at an unassuming studio in Los Angeles and recorded Break Up, a collection of boy-meets-girl-girl-ruins-boy duets in the tradition of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and Lou Reed and Nico.

And what tradition would that be? According to Yorn, the tradition of being cool. “Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot—they’re cool, I love them … Brigitte Bardot … Scarlett Johansson! Just a total chain reaction,” he says in the interview. We would have gone with, “Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot—their album was nuts and they boned … Brigitte Bardot … Scarlett Johansson! I had to at least try,” because that would’ve made more sense. But we don’t have ScarJo’s number either, so maybe we should shut up.

To read further on Gainsbourg’s sonic sexual exploits, check The FADER’s recent Reheater of his and Jane Birkin’s classic and just reissued Histoire de Melody Nelson.