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Review [published June 2004]
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Ben Granger
Just because every music critic in the land suddenly
simultaneously drools like a sick puppy over some hot
new things, it doesn’t mean said things are actually
that good. The slavish adulation these uber-foppish
young Glaswegians are getting across the board is
off-putting because it has so many bad precedents.
Music mags, broadsheets, tabloids and no doubt
promotional in-house newsletters for the grommet
manufacturing industry have been unanimous in their
knicker-wetting praise. When the ‘with-it’ Guardian
allowed the band to edit their own G2 supplement
one was reminded of that dark era when university
professors and vicars were (quite genuinely) invited
on television to discuss the intricacies behind the
lyrics to Oasis’ Be Here Now. Frankly, there’s just
not enough vomit in the world.
I put this album on therefore expecting an instant
eye and earful of Emperor’s New Clothing. What I got
was the opening song, ‘Jacqueline’, the most genuinely
thrilling beginning to an album for many, many years.
All the factors that make this record transcend the hype
kick in with an exhilarating and magnetic burst. The
BUY Franz Ferdinand music online from and
thousand megawatt surge of the soaring guitar, the elastic
funk of the swaggering bass, the strange voice that
swings from the mannered to the primal. This opener
is fucking sensational, and for once the whole mass of
tawdry, silly hyperbole seems, if anything, understated.
It would be impossible for a whole album to carry
on as well as that, but they have a damn good try. Their
sound has been described as part of the early 80s punkfunk
revival, but this is a lot more fully realised than
The Rapture were ever likely to be. There certainly
is something almost eerily 80s about singer Alex Kapranos’
affected tones. But perhaps a better comparison
can be found with previous press darlings The Strokes.
Both draw heavily from the art-punk of the late 70s,
but whereas The Strokes are more Television and Iggy,
Franz Ferdinand are more Blondie and Buzzcocks. And
it’s the Scots’ songs that stay with you longer.
Lyrically we’re in that hinterland between worldweary
hedonism and humane misanthropy, where the
smart are cool and the cool are smart. There’s some
very nice touches. The comically self-obsessed student
in ‘Dark Of The Matinee’ daydreaming of impressing
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