Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now
Fixin' The Charts, Volume One
Release Date: Feb 16, 2010
Genre(s): Rock, Pop
Record label: Cooking Vinyl
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Album Review: Fixin' The Charts, Volume One by Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now
Mediocre, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 5/10
Right from the get-go --with the brilliantly meta "Formed a Band" -- Art Brut's Eddie Argos has been obsessed with (and excelled about) writing songs about pop music, a preoccupation that's only become more pronounced with each of the group's albums. So it's hardly surprising that his first major venture outside of the band is a conceptual project of pop songs inspired by other pop songs. Specifically, Fixin' the Charts is an album of answer songs -- a long-standing pop institution (from "Roll with Me Henry" to "Roxanne's Revenge" to "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken"), but one that's probably never been indulged to quite this extent.
Based on rating 3.8/10
"Answer records are not new," Time magazine wrote. That was in 1961. From "Yes, I'm Lonesome Tonight" to "You Know I'll Love You Tomorrow", "Roll With Me, Henry" to "Wearing His Rolex", songs that respond to other songs have long been a lively pop tradition. In 1995, German reissue label Bear Family put out a three-volume compilation series, And the Answer Is: Great Pop Answer Discs From the '50s and '60s.