Les Horribles Cernettes

This picture of Les Horribles Cernettes was the first photographic image to be published on the World Wide Web in 1992

Les Horribles Cernettes (French pronunciation: [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.^[1][2][3]

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 CERN, 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,^[4] 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'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.^[5] The band's lineup has changed over time, but they are still performing as of 2007^[update].

Silvano de Gennaro has said that Les Cernettes were the subject of the first photographic image on the Web (and the first band to have a website)^[6]:

"Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-Lee 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 [1]
• Daddy's Lab [2]
• My Sweetheart is a Nobel Prize [3]
• Surfing on the Web [4]
• Antiworld [5]
• Collider [6]
• Strong Interaction [7]
• Computer Games [8]
• Microwave Love [9]

New 2007 songs presented for the first time in the CERN 2007 Hardronic festival:

• Big Bang
• Mr. Higgs
• Every Proton of You

See also

• "Large Hadron Rap" by Katherine McAlpine
• Filk music

References

1. ^ James Gillies (1998-11-03). "Making a song and dance about physics". CERN Courier (CERN). http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/27907. Retrieved 2010-09-24. 
2. ^ Malcolm W Brown (1998-12-29). "Physicists Discover Another Unifying Force: Doo-Wop". New York Times (New York, USA). http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/Press/NYT.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-21. 
3. ^ Heather McCabe (Feb 10 1999). "Grrl Geeks Rock Out". Wired News (New York, USA). http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/Press/Wired.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-21. 
4. ^ CERN Hardronic Festival
5. ^ Press Info: Press Features Les Horribles Cernettes
6. ^ Silvano de Gennaro. "LHC: The First Band on the Web". CERN MusiClub. CERN. http://musiclub.web.cern.ch/MusiClub/bands/cernettes/firstband.html. Retrieved 2010-09-24. 

External links

• Les Horribles Cernettes Home Page
• The CERN MusiClub
• Heather McCabe (1999-02-09). "Grrl Geeks Rock Out". Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1294,17821,00.html. 
• Music Video of Collider
• Cernettes Band Profile on YouTube
• James Gillies, CERN (1998-11-03). "Making a song and dance about physics". Cern Courier. http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/27907.  Band history and evolution