''Les Horribles Cernettes'' (, "The Horrible

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

Girls") was an all-female parody pop group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", which was founded by employees of CERN and performed at CERN and other HEP-related events. Their main claim to fame is that a photograph of them was one of the earliest photographic images shared on the world wide web. Their musical style is often described as

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

. The initials of their name, LHC, are the same as those of the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...

, 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

, whose romantic relationship with a physicist was made difficult by his numerous shifts. She attracted 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. The group was subsequently formed with the help of 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 (; born Jerzy Charpak, 1 August 1924 – 29 September 2010) was a Polish-born French physicist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992. Life Georges Charpak was born Jerzy Charpak to Jewish parents, Anna (Szapiro) and ...

's Nobel Prize party. At the same time the band self-released an album titled ''Collider'' through

CD Baby CD Baby, Inc. is an online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. The CD Baby music store was shut down in March 2020 with a statement that "C ...

and received press coverage from numerous newspapers, including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''The Herald Tribune'', ''La Tribune de Genève'', and the ''CERN Courier''. The band's lineup has changed over time, but they were performing under the same name until 21 July 2012, when the band had its final performance, which was at CERN's Hardronic Festival in Switzerland. The band went into hiatus when Silvano and Michele moved away from the CERN area and officially disbanded in late July 2012, after performing at the CERN Hardronic Festival on the 21st.

Lynn Veronneau Lynn may refer to: People and fictional characters * Lynn (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Lynn (surname) * The Lynns, a 1990s American country music duo consisting of twin sisters Peggy and Patsy Lynn * Lynn ( ...

has since embarked upon a serious solo career, recording French language versions of popular standards. Angela Higney also made several solo releases. On July 15, 2017, and in celebration of their 25th anniversary (of their historic exposure on the World Wide Web), the original members performed for a one-time-only concert in Geneva. In May 2020 the band released a new song titled "The Lockdown Song" referencing to the events of

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

First photo on the web

''Les Cernettes'' is the subject of the first photo of a band and one of the first photos on the Web: Silvano had taken the picture above on July 18, 1992 with a

Canon EOS 650 The Canon EOS 650 is a 35 mm single-lens reflex camera. It was introduced on 2 March 1987, Canon's 50th anniversary, and discontinued in February 1989. It was the first camera in Canon's new EOS series, which was designed from scratch to suppo ...

.How the first photo was posted on the Web 20 years ago
Andrew Hough, The Telegraph, 11 July 2012

Discography

''Collider'' (album)

Track listing

Singles

* "The Lockdown Song" - 2020

Other songs

The song performed at the CERN Hardronic '98 festival: * "Goodbye Sweet CERN" New 2007 songs presented for the first time in the CERN 2007 Hardronic festival: * "Big Bang" * "Mr. Higgs"

Music videos

References

External links

Les Horribles Cernettes Home PageCernettes Band Profile
on YouTube

* Band history and evolution {{DEFAULTSORT:Horribles Cernettes, Les Filkers History of the Internet Girl groups CERN Swiss musical groups Musical groups established in 1990