“When I was a lad…” well, it used to be at least moderately difficult to acquire music. Pre-internet, some stuff was genuinely hard to find – even if you lived in New York or London – and often meant paying beaucoup bucks for it. I’m frankly ashamed of some of the prices I paid back then. I cringe with embarrassment when reminded that I’ve spent $100 on a single soundtrack LP or a rare 12” dance mix. $80 for a 45 rpm single. It made sense at the time…
I mention this wistful old man shit by way of bringing up the most I ever spent on a single CD (times three): At some point in the late 1980s, I paid $43 apiece for three Les Rita Mitsouko CDs that I special ordered from Rebel Rebel on Bleecker Street. I was a huge fan of the band (I’ve seen them live twice, and I doubt they’ve played all that many shows in the US), but it was next to impossible to buy their CDs.
I was obsessed with Les Rita Mitsouko. I saw them live twice – a rarity on American soil – and somehow managed a near-complete collection of their music videos on 3/4” U-matic tapes. Couldn’t even play them. Didn’t matter. They were France’s greatest pop group, and it wasn’t even close.
Most Americans (and even a lot of Serge Gainsbourg-obsessed Francophiles) have never heard of Les Rita Mitsouko, and that’s a god damn shame. The duo, made up of Catherine Ringer and Fred Chichin, were equal parts pop genius, punk attitude, glam theatricality, and art-school spectacle. Imagine if Deee-lite and Pizzicato Five had French sex and a nihilist sense of humour, and you’re in the ballpark.
From their very first album, produced by krautrock legend Conny Plank, who is now known for his work with Kraftwerk and Neu!, they came fully formed: weird, whip-smart, and visually fearless. That debut, Rita Mitsouko, was a revelation in France. The follow-up, Les Rita Mitsouko présentent The No Comprendo, produced by Tony Visconti, is considered a high watermark in French pop.
“I never thought I would hear a French rock band rival an English or American one”.
Tony Visconti
Visually, they were stunning. Their music videos—some directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, with styling by Thierry Mugler, Agnès B, Jean-Paul Gaultier—were mini pop-art explosions. Fashion-forward before that was a buzzword. Art school but horny. Campy, yes, but with teeth.
Their biggest hit, Marcia Baila, was a tribute to a friend of Ringer’s who died young. The video features Catherine in full Catherine mode: striking, wild-eyed, and impossibly sexy. It’s hard to overstate how much presence she had. Her vocals were operatic, feral, taunting, tender—all within the same chorus. A truly great frontwoman.
And then there’s the past.
Years later, a French friend clued me into the lesser-known Catherine Ringer origin story. Allegedly a junkie in her teens, Ringer had appeared in several fringe porn films in the late 1970s—some while still underage—under aliases like Betty Davis, Cat Gerin, and Claudia Mutti. These weren’t typical euro-smut reels; they were the kind of films sought out by serious fetish collectors. Let’s just say they weren’t for the casual viewer.
During their rise to fame in mid-80s France, it wasn’t uncommon to hear stories of decadent Parisians holding dinner parties to screen Ringer’s old adult work. The fact that she carried that notoriety into mainstream pop stardom without blinking is a testament to her no-fucks-given charisma. It wasn’t about shame—it was survival. She’d already lived through the inferno and returned to make strange, beautiful pop music about it.
Fred Chichin, too, had a rough edge. They met in 1979, shortly after he’d gotten out of prison for a drug charge. The two instantly clicked. Their partnership—personal and artistic—lasted nearly 30 years, until Chichin’s death in 2007 from hepatitis C. Ringer has continued to record and perform as a solo artist, but nothing quite touched the manic brilliance of what they created together.
In recent years, Because Music has released L’intégrale, a career-spanning box set on CD and vinyl, along with remastered LPs and a multi-disc best-of. It’s never been easier—or cheaper—to discover this band outside of France.
Start with The No Comprendo. Then put on C’est Comme Ça. If you’re not sold by the end of that track, well… maybe we’re into different kinds of magic.
Below is the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed video for The No Comprendo’s ‘C’est Comme Ça‘. If you don’t fall immediately in love with this band after watching this video, I don’t know what to say to you…