FRENCH STAR’S NEW LOVE SONGS TAKE A BEATING

It was only a matter of time.

After the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) put the heat on the music industry last year, persuading most record companies to “voluntarily” label albums that contained “explicit” lyrics, we knew some pop star would end up with a warning sticker.

Many industry observers also predicted that the vague nature of the agreement--no one seems to agree on what constitutes “explicit” lyrics--would lead to some pretty ridiculous judgment calls.

So far, such likely candidates as Prince, the Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest--who all have new records--have escaped unscathed.

But not “Love on the Beat,” the new album by French pop star Serge Gainsbourg. In what apparently is the first clear-cut example of a major label “sticker” campaign, PolyGram Records has slapped a warning sticker on the cover, which reads, “Explicit French Lyrics: Parental Advisory.”

Gainsbourg is a popular French vocalist who is best known here for a 1969 single called “Je t’aime . . . moi non plus,” which was banned from many radio stations when it was first released. Known for his controversial erotic songs (he did the sound track for “Goodbye Emmanuelle,” wrote ballads for Brigitte Bardot and Isabelle Adjani and once recorded a reggae version of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise”), Gainsbourg features a host of Euro-disco dance tracks on his new album, all enlivened by his sexy, Gauloise-drenched, spoken-word vocal style.

Since all the lyrics are in French, and our command of the language is woefully inadequate, we were unable to determine exactly which tunes might offend listener sensibilities. However, the song titles offer a few clues. They include “Hmm Hmm Hmm,” “Kiss Me Hardy” and “Lemon Incest,” a duet with a breathy chanteuse who turns out to be Gainsbourg’s teen-age daughter, Charlotte.

How did this Gallic pop oddity come to merit a warning sticker? And just how explicit are the offending lyrics? A PolyGram spokeswoman said the company’s key executives were out of the country at a convention and unavailable for comment.

However, the spokeswoman explained: “Someone in our New York office, who speaks French, listened to the album and translated the lyrics. Then the company decided that since the lyrics were explicit, we should make consumers aware of their explicit nature. The warning sticker is really a statement of fact--they are, in fact, explicit French lyrics.”