Everybody Was in The French Resistance... Now!:
Fixin the Charts, Volume 1

Everybody Was in The French Resistance... Now!

Cooking Vinyl








Eddie Argos has always had an esteemed eye on pop music. He proudly announced on "Formed a Band" that he was "gonna take that song / And play it eight weeks in a row / On Top of the Pops!" But regardless of that, he's always represented a sort of indie sophist, waxing philosophically on such culture-lodged artifacts of mixtapes, record stores and the Replacements. All of that was reserved for Art Brut of course, an unquestionably 'indie rock' band with jangling guitars and post-graduate vocabulary.

However, Argos' latest side project has him embracing the magic of billboard-pop music with open arms. The awkwardly named Everybody Was in The French Resistance... Now! has the singer teaming up with the Blood Arms' Dyan Valdes to, quite literally, "right the wrongs of popular music." This has the duo rewriting Avril Lavigne's (utterly insidious) "Girlfriend" into an obsessive lover's parable, Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" into a paternity test imploration and Green Day's sanctimonious "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" into a heroic, it's-all-gonna-be-alright uplifter. Their debut record Fixin' The Charts, Volume 1 shouldn't work in a lot of ways, but somehow the pronounced amount of fun that went into these songs translate surprisingly seamlessly to the listener.

While Art Brut were focused more on angular guitar swathes and bellowed mantras, French Resistance is far more twee-inclined. The tracks are comprised of Charlie Brown Piano, pulpy brass and even a few glockenspiels - going well with the period-piece nature of the record. Sure some of the songs are shredding aught-pop world dominators like "Gold Digger" (with, *ahem* "Coal Digger,") but they also reach much deeper into the renowned recesses of popular music. "He's a 'Rebel'" is a surrogate take on the Crystals song of the same name (sans quotations,) but while Spector's version details a motorcycle-riding badass with feasibly no respect for anyone - Argos and Valdes turn the song into the classic "is she really going out with him?" diatribe, with the infatuated young girl claiming her flame to be really sweet and thoughtful on the inside while her friend tries to convince her otherwise; "When we watched Casablanca / He didn't cry at the sad bit / It's not because he's tough / It's cause he doesn't understand it."

French Resistance do let some genuine songwriting slip in between the culture-critic rips. Argos is still sing-speaking his way through love, heartbreak, self-consciousness and maturation. "Think Twice (It's Not Alright)" is utterly devoid of sarcasm, giving way to a whimsical harpsichord and an oddly touching harmonic conclusion; "Think and then think again / Before you say it's too late for us / Think and then think again / I don't believe your mind is fully made up / Think and then think again / Can't you see we're still in love?" It divorces itself from its obvious lovebird touchstone (Dylan's "Don't Think Twice it's Alright") quite cleanly, and resonates deeper than anything Argos has released thus far. Which is saying a lot, considering this is the man who penned "Emily Kane."

Fixin' The Charts is a good record even without the satirical subtext; the songs are smart, funny and inexplicably relevant for a concept based on pure kitsch. Eddie Argos' crisp lyrical wit is still sharp, Valdes' voice is continually pretty and the band never lets its sardonic banter get in the way of the songs, allowing the album to be great on both a superficial sonic level and as a cutting series of in-jokes and quips - something probably only Argos could achieve.

by Luke Winkie