What's the deal with Art Brut, anyway? Are they a rock 'n' roll band that makes jokes or a joke band that plays rock 'n' roll? And what's the deal with the French? When it comes to inconsequential leisure goods (cheese, wine, soccer) they're some of the world's best, but when it comes to things that actually matter (influencing global politics, winning wars) they don't have the same success. So why, then, would anyone aim to join a resistance against such harmless friends?
Eddie Argos, the ceaselessly witty frontman (who is not, in fact, French), is here to provide all our answers and even rewrite some of our questions.
Fixing the Charts, Volume 1—the debut from rock 'n' roller Argos' pop side project, Everybody Was in the French Resistance... Now!—is a song-by-song recreation of modern pop. Argos and Co. flip the script, writing irrecognizable perspectives of some of pop music's most recognizable songs.
Take, for instance, Avril Lavigne's unavoidable summer jam ""Girlfriend."" When Lavigne sees a man in a doomed relationship looking for a way out, Argos is there to tell her on ""G.I.R.L.F.R.E.N. (You Know I've Got A)"" that the boyfriend is happy just where he is and those mixed signals she's getting are just annoyance.
And there's more. Argos warns Bob Dylan he'd better reconsider on ""Think Twice (It's Not Alright),"" tells Kanye West not to be so judgmental on ""Coal Digger"" and teaches Frank Sinatra that ""My Way (Is Not Always the Best Way).""
The problem is, while French Resistance manage to stray away from the Top 40 pop hooks they despise, they have a hard time demanding legitimacy, risking comparisons to ""Weird Al"" Yankovic and the like. The music itself is well thought out, even if not altogether inventive, and the band plays with machinistic precision. But the trouble is that Argos fills a similar role. All too often, the charming, endearing singer who strives on roughshod riffs and speedy singalongs is laid atop a stagnant hook parlaying a narrative he cares little about. It's a forced gimmick from the same guy responsible for making gimmickry sound organic.
The trouble with scolding Argos for this, though, is that we're robbing him of his originality. Nobody tells Ryan Howard to stop swinging for the fences, because we've all learned to accept his high strikeout rate as a tradeoff for his power. Argos is the same guy who wrote a noteworthy song about DC Comics and chocolate milkshakes, so of course he'd want to tell Avril Lavigne to stop being a homewrecker.
Make no mistake: Eddie Argos is still a funny man. But Argos' shtick works with Art Brut because he's speaking to his peers. His wit doesn't depend on his rock 'n' roll backbone, but its ruthless style is enhanced by the context. His quirky witticisms are substantiated by the heavy background, while the straightforward riffs look to his lyrics for ingenuity.
But with French Resistance he scales back. He tells us about his girlfriend without mentioning how many times he's seen her naked, and he's worse for it. He struggles with this new background, unsure of what he can or should say, afraid his mannerisms might cause too much of a stir. Argos has always just said whatever he wanted, and the new self-imposed restrictions cut out his endearing honesty.
His forced lyrics are not enough to stand alone, and without the sturdy backbone of Art Brut's riffs, his novelty wears down. Put simply, French Resistance is a one-trick pony trying to get by on novel goods (think cheese, wine, soccer), and while we're likely to indulge in their materialism from time to time, we're still bound to go to Art Brut for our more substantive needs (think DC Comics, chocolate milkshakes).
