Les Horribles Cernettes (, "The Horrible CERN 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 the earliest photographic image shared on the World Wide Web.

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.

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 shift work pattern. 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. and 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 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 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.

On September 17, 2024, the band performed at CERN in celebration of the organisation's 70th anniversary.

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 de Gennaro had taken the picture above on July 18, 1992 with a Canon EOS 650.

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

{| class="wikitable"

!Year

!Song

!Album

|-

|rowspan="1"|1992

|"Collider"

|rowspan="2"|Collider

|-

|rowspan="1"|1996

|"Surfing on the Web"

|-

|rowspan="1"|2020

|"The Lockdown Song"

|rowspan="1"|Non-album single

|-

|}

See also

  • Trojan Room coffee pot
  • "Large Hadron Rap" by Katherine McAlpine
  • Filk music

References

  • Les Horribles Cernettes Home Page
  • Cernettes Band Profile on YouTube
  • The CERN MusiClub

Band history and evolution