But since a death now seems to compel everyone to turn every artist into a universally acclaimed icon, I feel like saying something else.
Personally, Catherine Ringer has always made me a bit uncomfortable. And Fred Chichin even more so.
Not just musically. Their whole world made me feel uncomfortable.
They weren’t part of my cultural background. Their punk, pop, cabaret, ramshackle aesthetic, their clothes, their bodies, their attitudes – that way of creating beauty out of the bizarre, kitsch out of trash – almost felt like an assault to me when I was young. Where many saw tremendous freedom, I also saw something deliberately over-the-top, sometimes too much, sometimes embarrassing.
Catherine Ringer had a past in pornographic films, which she never denied. Fred Chichin, too, had lived through a youth far more chaotic than that of the well-groomed pop singer. Their world came from the underground, from Parisian nights, from punk, from provocation, from experimentation and excess.
In short, Les Rita were a bit odd.
And that was precisely part of their identity.
Over time, I’ve obviously come to understand better what was so valuable about that strangeness. They were unlike anyone else. Nowadays, when so many artists seem to come off the same production line – with the same clothes, the same productions and the same marketing strategies – this uniqueness even seems almost luxurious.
But understanding their importance doesn’t mean I have to like them in hindsight.
Perhaps that is what bothers me about posthumous tributes: this strange rewriting that suddenly transforms our past irritations into unanimous admiration. Death has never made a work of art any better. Nor should it erase what bothered us about those who created it.
One can respect Catherine Ringer without claiming to have adored her.
One can acknowledge that she and Fred Chichin invented a sound, an aesthetic and an artistic partnership that were utterly unique, whilst admitting that they sometimes made us feel frankly uncomfortable.
One can say: you meant a great deal to me, but you weren’t my artistic family.
And ultimately, that may well be the finest tribute one can pay them. Because Les Rita Mitsouko were, quite simply, not meant to please everyone. They were too strange, too free, too excessive for that.
They left behind songs that almost all of us know, and a mark that cannot be erased.
So yes, here’s to Les Rita.
But without painting them beige for eternity.
Rest in peace, Fred and Catherine.
You were a right odd lot, after all.
And deep down, that was perhaps your greatest quality.
