Les Horribles Cernettes
Encyclopedia
Les Horribles Cernettes (lezɔʁiblə sɛːʁˈnɛt, "The Horrible CERN
Girls") is an all-female parody pop
group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", founded by employees of CERN which performs at CERN and other HEP related events. Their musical style is often described as doo-wop
. The initials of their name, LHC, are the same as those of the Large Hadron Collider
which was later built at CERN.
Their humorous songs are freely available on their website.
, whose romantic relationship with a physicist was made difficult by his numerous shifts
. She attracted his attention by stepping on stage during the CERN Hardronic Festival, singing "Collider", a melancholy song about the lonely nights endured by the girlfriend of a high energy physicist (excerpt):
The group was subsequently formed around Silvano de Gennaro, an analyst in the Computer Science department at CERN, who wrote additional songs. The fame of Les Horribles Cernettes grew and they were invited to international Physics conferences and The World'92 Expo in Seville, as well as celebrations such as Georges Charpak
's Nobel Prize party. They received press coverage from numerous newspapers, including The New York Times
, The Herald Tribune, La Tribune de Genève, and the CERN Courier. The band's lineup has changed over time, but they are still performing .
Silvano de Gennaro has said that Les Cernettes were the subject of the first photograph
ic image on the Web (and the first band to have a website):
New 2007 songs presented for the first time in the CERN 2007 Hardronic festival:
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
Girls") is an all-female parody pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", founded by employees of CERN which performs at CERN and other HEP related events. Their musical style is often described as doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
. The initials of their name, LHC, are the same as those of the Large Hadron Collider
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
which was later built at CERN.
Their humorous songs are freely available on their website.
History
Les Horribles Cernettes was founded in 1990 by Michele de Gennaro, a graphic designer at CERNCERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, whose romantic relationship with a physicist was made difficult by his numerous shifts
Shift work
Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts....
. She attracted his attention by stepping on stage during the CERN Hardronic Festival, singing "Collider", a melancholy song about the lonely nights endured by the girlfriend of a high energy physicist (excerpt):
I gave you a golden ring to show you my love
You went to stick it in a printed circuit
To fix a voltage leak in your collector
You plug my feelings into your detector
You never spend your nights with me
You don't go out with other girls either
You prefer your collider
You only love your collider
Your collider.
The group was subsequently formed around Silvano de Gennaro, an analyst in the Computer Science department at CERN, who wrote additional songs. The fame of Les Horribles Cernettes grew and they were invited to international Physics conferences and The World'92 Expo in Seville, as well as celebrations such as Georges Charpak
Georges Charpak
Georges Charpak was a French physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992.-Life:Georges Charpak was born to Jewish family in the village of Dąbrowica in Poland . Charpak's family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old...
's Nobel Prize party. They received press coverage from numerous newspapers, including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Herald Tribune, La Tribune de Genève, and the CERN Courier. The band's lineup has changed over time, but they are still performing .
Silvano de Gennaro has said that Les Cernettes were the subject of the first photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
ic image on the Web (and the first band to have a website):
"Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
asked me for a few scanned photos of "the CERN girls" to publish them on some sort of information system he had just invented, called the "World Wide Web". I had only a vague idea of what that was, but I scanned some photos on my Mac and FTPed them to Tim's now famous "info.cern.ch". How was I to know that I was passing an historical milestone, as the one above was the first picture ever to be clicked on in a web browser!"
Titles
See links for lyrics and media:- Liquid Nitrogen http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/nitrogen.html
- Daddy's Lab http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/daddy.html
- My Sweetheart is a Nobel Prize http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/nobel.html
- Surfing on the Web http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/on_the_web.html
- Antiworld http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/antiworld.html
- Collider http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/collider.html
- Strong Interaction http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/strong_int.html
- Computer Games http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/compugames.html
- Microwave Love http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/songs/microwave.html
New 2007 songs presented for the first time in the CERN 2007 Hardronic festival:
- Big Bang
- Mr. Higgs
- Every Proton of You
External links
- Les Horribles Cernettes Home Page
- The CERN MusiClub
- Music Video of Collider
- Cernettes Band Profile on YouTube Band history and evolution