Alizée America Forum - View Single Post

FanDeAliFee · #33 03-25-2011, 01:14 PM

Well, Chateau Marmont's North American tour is now history. You can read a humorously frank and detailed account, with cool photos, of the first part of their adventures here. One is happy to learn that their show in Montreal was SOLD OUT! (This hardly contradicts my theory that the French language is an issue for musical success in North America.)

But in this post, I want to examine the name with which they chose to brand themselves.

In their November 2009 interview by Julien Perret, they reported that the band itself was formed in September 2006 and its name coined to capture both a sense of French refinement and a little disgusting debauchery.

If you are as naive as was I, an American who little follows the depressing antics of over-privileged celebrities, the CBS News video below explains the history of the famous West Hollywood luxury hotel named Chateau Marmont where they are wont to cavort, and to which the band's name partially alludes.

But were I French and unaware of the California hotel, the band's name would ring in my ears like Hotel Arnold (as in Benedict Arnold) would in an American's, for Marshal Auguste de Marmont is famous as a long-time intimate lieutenant to Napoleon - who would eventually betray this renowned son of Ajaccio. This makes it quite ironic that the band should become the intimate musical partner of our favorite singer from that same Corsican city, Alizée! (Aside: The greatest irony is that Marmont would end his life in Vienna, tutoring the son of the man he betrayed - the Duke of Reichstadt, aka Napoleon II.)

<table cellspacing="10" align="center"><tr valign="top"><td width="250"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Marmont.jpg/250px-Marmont.jpg"><br><center>Auguste de Marmont, Marshal of France</center></td><td width="383"><a href="http://mairie.chatillon-sur-seine.pagesperso-orange.fr/Originex.html"><img src="http://mairie.chatillon-sur-seine.pagesperso-orange.fr/Origine/IMAG0001.GIF"></a><br>The other, French, "Chateau Marmont" - Le château du maréchal Marmont à Châtillon-sur-Seine</td></tr></table>The band only became associated with Institubes when the latter released their independently produced work, Solar Apex, in December 2008. By then CM was already over two years old. Thus, the historical footnote linking them with Alizée through the Marshal is purely by curious fate, rather than by any design.

I discussed a little about re-using a famous name as a branding strategy last year in the post "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? To be frank, I think choosing the band name Chateau Marmont was a mistake. The treacherous Marshal aside, in the Internet age, when one searches the net for this name, hits relevant to the band are totally swamped into obscurity by those relating to the hotel.

But if the guys were hung up on an allusion to the hotel, they could have tried playful variants like G(h)ateau Marmont, which might have given them a <a href="http://curbednetwork.com/cache/gallery/3064/3076910200_b2356aba91_o.gif">cake shaped like a building</a> for a symbol. (BTW Alizée fans, GH is a very characteristic letter combo in Corsu.) And if the band remained faithful to its other-worldly synth genre, its members might have found themselves better pleased with a name like Logan's Runners. I guess it is all just too late now.

<table cellpadding="10" align="center"><tr valign="top"><td>By the way, you can read about how the hotel got its name <a href="http://www.sunsetstript.com/2010/09/11/how-did-chateau-marmont-get-its-name/">here</a>. It was named after the street on which it sits, which in turn was named after an early British - NOT French - Hollywood film star.<br><br><img src="http://www.spotlight.com/hallfame/portraits/percy_marmont.jpg"><br><center>film actor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Marmont">Percy Marmont</a></center></td><td><img src="http://you-are-here.com/building/chateau_marmont.jpg"><br><center>The hotel <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_Marmont">Chateau Marmont</a> in West Hollywood</center></td></tr></table>In the final analysis, it is important that the public likes the product you sell. But many people selling premium goods sure do spend a lot of money to get themselves the right name - it must often make a difference to how hard and long a journey to success one must endure. And the recorded music business is next to impossible these days, anyway.

Good luck to the fellows of CM!