FRANZ FERDINAND

Some time before Christmas in 2003 I was watching the unsettlingly slimy Jools Holland slither his way through a cabaret of artists, one of whom included the then unheard-of Franz Ferdinand performing their future single "Take Me Out". Being the sort of person who knows a lot about music I immediately wrote them off as the first of a new wave of bands, uninspired in their unoriginality, trying to ride the coat-tails of the "proper" new rock bands like the Strokes, White Stripes, Libertines, etc. (you are surely already familiar with this list). "They'll sink without a trace" I cackled to myself evilly, before falling into a pit of despair with the realisation that I was yet again stuck in front of telly, drinking by myself, on a Friday night. Anyhow, much to my surprise and well-concealed annoyance I was proved spectacularly wrong. Some time in the early spring (in fairness, a notoriously slow time of year for the charts) the aformentioned "Take Me Out" flew out of nowhere into no. 3 in the charts and, upon hearing it a bit more, I was forced to concede that I had, perhaps, been a little hasty. A few more listens and I realised, with begrudging admiration, that it was actually one of the best little ditties to have been released in recent memory. In fact, it was absolutely brilliant. The initial schism, only one minute in, from one song to the next which originally appeared unnecessary now appears to be one of the cleverest tricks played upon us by any major new band and the self-styled indie-disco that the song morphs into is, of course, ridiculously infectious. Naturally, one can haughtily quoteth the revered names of Talking Heads, Gang of Four and the like, as if saying writing a great song that sounds like other great bands is somehow a bad thing. Of course Franz Ferdinand aren't THAT original but I'm getting pretty tired of hearing that as some sort of all-encompassing condemnation. The Dream Syndicate sounded a lot like the Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls sounded a lot like The Rolling Stones, The Pixies sounded a lot like Yes. (OK, maybe not the last one.) The point is, bands are always going to be looking to other bands for inspiration - that's how friggin' art works. And that is not the problem with Franz Ferdinand. My problem with Franz Ferdinand is more the fact that I am not exactly sure how much depth there is beneath their immaculately styled surface. Sure, "Take Me Out" is a great song, as is album opener "Jacqueline" (which includes the brilliant noveau-Morrissey observational wit of "it's so much better on holiday/that's why we only work when we need the money"), as is to a slightly lesser extent bouncy follow-up single "The Dark of the Matinee" (with another Morrissey-esque reference to Terry Wogan) and the driving pop of "Cheating on You". The rest of the album all seems sound enough (bar the irritating Blur mockneyism of "Tell Her Tonight") but I have my doubts as to how often I'll be listening to this in six months time. It is actually quite interesting (no, really) to look over the past pages of this Modern Age feature to see just how right or wrong I was with my initial impressions and predictions concerning all these new bands at the time they came out. Will this be confined to the dust-gathering purgatory of the likes of the Hives or the Vines whose glossy veneer had gradually been eroded away to reveal a rather insubstantial centre (and it is not just me, as the media's backlash against the Vines at least gathers steam)? I guess time will be the judge, and all that, as there is little way to rub off the still-fresh gloss on this particular release. It seems very good at the moment, of course, but my doubts are still lingering. Oh well, at least "Take Me Out" will always be one achievement they should definitely be remembered for. That and their unforgettable performance on Jools Holland, of course.

From: Maréchal Lionel

It seems to me that the riff of "Take Me Out" is strangely similar to Led Zeppelin's "Trampled Underfoot". It's the same kind of, er, "disco hard rock", seems that Franz merely simplified the riff... (by the way, Franz Ferdinand is one of the lamest band names I've ever heard...)

From: Adrian Constant

I agree with your assessment of their album - it is excellent. you also raise some good points about the value of "retro" derivative rock styles... (BTW - have you heard The New Pornographers? ). While I enjoy power pop - I can't help feeling that this new generation of acts are more the curators or rock than its creators... While they have mastered the form, there is little creative force in most of the music... It's almost academic...

The other day I asked a friend if he'd heard the new Franz Ferdinand album to which he replied he was getting rather tired of all the Gang of Four rip-off bands. Whichever way you want to interpret the worthiness of his sentiments it struck me that there is actually very little Gang of Four in Franz Ferdinand or, indeed, in any of the straggling pretenders that constitute their ilk. The music media might like to get their rocks off comparing today's crop with the none-more-cool post-punk output of the late seventies and early eighties but it seems to me there is no further comparison point than that horrible scrawny Britpop scene of the mid-nineties. Of course, these days it is done in an 'ironic' way but, for example, who do the moronic Kaiser Chiefs sound more like - Talking Heads or Menswear? Furthermore, a lot of these bands, and the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand in particular, are all comfortably in their thirties and were no doubt in similar-sounding indie bands a decade ago, which never made the grade. Franz Ferdinand could conceivably have written this material ten years ago and, bar the odd raised eyebrow and jerky guitar riff, it would have slotted in perfectly with the zeitgeist. It is like a giant wooden horse that NME and co have opened the gates for and all of a sudden ex-members of Shed Seven and the Bluetones jump out. Now good music is good music is good music and Franz Ferdinand, as I begrudgingly admitted last year, are at the top of the barrel. They might be indie has-beens being given a second chance a decade on but they write good songs and pack them full of clever ideas and neat little tricks (something that certainly couldn't be said about the Kaiser Chiefs or Maximo Park, for instance.) Patience in the music industry is in notoriously short supply and therefore very few bands that are immediately successful dare to experiment too much on their sophomore effort. In that respect, no doubt down to the wisening of their years, Franz Ferdinand are a dream to Domino's anxious executives. Not only do they keep rigidly within the template set on their debut they do so with a sporadically stronger set of melodies and certainly with far more confidence and verve. It would be an exaggeration to say that "Do You Want to" announced their return given they had never really been away (18 months between albums is a refreshing anomaly) but it nonetheless put the not-so-young pretenders in their place with its brazenly catchy hook trading on the wry humour of its lyrics and promotional video in a seamless success of pleasing everybody at the same time. It is deffo about gay sex, though, a favourite subject of Alex Kapranos's and it was amusing to see his deadpan dismissal of slack-jawed uber-goon Edith Bowman's suggestion that writing lyrics from the perspective of an openly gay person somehow represented sexual ambiguity. In general, the lyrics are the same sort of pseudo-Morrissey shtick but Kapranos certainly delivers them with more gleeful nuances and smug verbosity. Indeed, for album opener "The Fallen" he delights in cramming as many words as possible into the vocal melody and as a result the band immediately come across as a slicker, leaner, and more confident beast. That said, and it is not apparent whether the lack of progression is to blame, but the overall effect of this album is not sufficiently stronger than that of the debut. Even the filler-ish songs are still more melodic than most typical indie singles but after repeated listens one cannot help but feel we're still not hearing a great band, merely a very competent one. The ballad "Walk Away" is a successful change of pace but the similarly restrained "Eleanor Put Your Boots on" and the Beatles-by-numbers "Fade Together" (both sung by the guitarist, I think) suggest the band really struggle to impress beyond their short and snappy jolts of catchy guitar pop. Like the last album, the quality is pretty unvarying but the first half stands out better with the sleek brevity of "This Boy" and "You're the Reason I'm Leaving" matched only by the propulsive title track on side 2. It is all obviously the mark of a band that know precisely what they're doing and the least risky way to achieve success. It is also an advert for perseverance in the music business. Stay still long enough and the cyclical nature of musical trends will ensure the fans will come back round to you all over again.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk