Everybody Was In The French Resistance. . . Now!, Fixin’ The Charts Volume One

By Noreen Sobczyk

When I first heard that Dyan Valdes (The Blood Arm) and Eddie Argos (Art Brut) were recording an album together, I was excited.

Argos always has plenty of humor and clever turns of phrase in his musical arsenal to fight the musical blahs. His antics with faux glam band Glam Chops even made Christmas music more enjoyable. So when I read Fixin’ the Charts was an album of answer songs I thought, “Well, that’s clever.”

That should have been my first warning. A concept album wherein the duo right the wrongs of other pop songs is clever indeed, perhaps too clever for its own good. But surely Argos would not let me down, right? And the band’s press release was entertaining:

COMMUNIQUÉ.

Avril Lavigne is a bitch. When she’s not gloating about her totally undeserved success or berating and sneering at young mothers, she is attempting to steal men from loving happy relationships.

Do not worry. Everybody Was In The French Resistance. . . Now have the “Motherfucking Princess” in their réticule.

Everybody Was In The French Resistance. . . Now are correcting the mistakes of pop songs past. So far they have defended the belittled blue collar worker from Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” told Gerry and the Pacemakers that in fact it is okay to walk alone, dumped the manipulative Martha Reeves on behalf of poor Jimmy Mack and taken the misguided instructions of a 17th century ballad to its logical conclusion.

THEY ARE FIXING THE CHARTS.

Fixin’ The Charts opens with “Creeque Allies,” a kind of Schoolhouse Rock for adults that covers the history behind the band’s name. I smirked when the duo made references to the notoriously fruitful loins of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins on “Billie’s Genes,” the answer to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”; I geeked out at the mention of The Archies’ “Waldo P. Emerson Jones.”

Argos and Valdez set out to provide wronged music fans some salvation by righting the wrongs of prior pop songs, but at least those songs gave people a case of the ear worm. Fixin’ The Charts doesn’t have them, even after multiple spins. While there are plenty of smart and funny references on Fixin’ The Charts, it just isn’t that much fun to listen to, which is really the point of the album.

I regretfully pronounce this a failed experiment. the musical equivalent of a bag of rice cakes when you were expecting an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. I get the references, but I didn’t get an album I want to share with my friends or listen to repeatedly. And when it comes down to it, that’s the sort of salvation we all need.

Fixin’ The Charts Volume One was released February 16 on Cooking Vinyl. To hear songs from the album, visit the band’s MySpace page.