Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand is an unrelentingly smart, fluffy, and fun debut. This Scottish four-piece plays vaguely angular, guitar-heavy post-pop that makes you want to dance around the room while playing air guitar. It's the ideal hipster guilty-pleasure music. This is what the Rapture and Interpol would sound like if they wrote songs half as good as those they rip off, or the Strokes if their parents had sent them to art school instead of the fashion academy. Every song on here is so blatantly derivative it sounds almost original, like a Blur without the gloomy hangover. It's too early yet to tell if this is just a band for the moment or one for the ages--but who really cares with pop music, anyway? Songs like "Darts of Pleasure," "Come on Home," "Take Me Out," and "Cheating on You" are so good they will surely appeal even to those without slanty, messy haircuts. --Mike McGonigal Amazon.com

Not aging so well

2 1/2

These boys managed to do the whole indie retro thing without much humiliation, but only but only a few years later, the Euro-snootiness masquerading as witty band interplay which embedded this debut with heavy buzz has seemed to wear thin, making the band's limitations seem even more apparent. August 26, 2008

Great Music

I find it funny that Sony actually got me into FF, with their one of their first PSP commercials that had Take Me Out in it.

From then to now, I've got this and their more recent CD. This CD is amazing and it should definitely get a listen by any fan of the genre. Keep on the lookout for their new CD... July 8, 2008

Standout!

These four young men who met at art school in Glasgow lay claim to an unfairly forgotten lineage of Scots post-punk pop. A timely conflation of snappy art-funk and spiralling guitars, Darts of Pleasure, the best three-track debut single since Suede's The Drowners, narrowly missed out on a top 40 placing last month. January's follow-up, Take Me Out, will almost certainly take the band on to Top of the Pops. May 6, 2008

Stands a damn good chance of becoming a classic

Franz Ferdinand were one of the best bands to make it big during the post-Strokes Indie rock revolution of the early 2000s (i.e., now). They had all the right ingredients: tight, catchy songs with angular guitars vaguely funky rhythms, just the right combination of punk, dance, and pop influences, and a hipper-than-hip aesthetic that combined everything that was cool between 1975 and last month. As a result, their debut album garnered a heap of critical praise and great sales. And they say that good music doesn't get any recognition these days.

Here's the thing: Franz Ferdinand, although it may be derivative, and not exactly 100% perfect, is still a fantastic album. One of the shining lights of the past seven years, as a matter of fact. It isn't just that the songs are catchy or smart or ridiculously exciting (even though they are certainly all of those things)- it's that they breathe new life into the whole grimy, post-grunge, post-90s, post-O.K. Computer, post-everything rut that the mainstream had been stuck in. Just listen to "The Dark Of The Matinee," the way it combines a lush, seductive vocal with a stomping, just-plain-raucous rhythm and elastic guitars. Listen to "Jacqueline," to its slashing, apocalyptic guitar chords and hedonistic lyrics. Listen to the tightly meshed melodies and shape-shifting stomp of "Take Me Out." And then there's the spastic cool of "Darts of Pleasure," and the gorgeously erotic "Michael." "This Fire" is an offbeat anthem.

As I said before, it isn't perfect. There aren't any truly bad songs, but after a while the album's formula does get a bit thin- it's hard to listen to this music for a full forty minutes without starting to feel like every song sounds like a slight variation on the one before it. That's not always a bad thing, but it does mean that the album tends to drag a bit in its last half, in spite of some truly inspired performances. Fans of alt-rock after Nirvana should love this. November 17, 2007

Follow lead

I love this CD. It is rare that I find one that I like every track on it, but this one is great. The lyrics are smart, the music is catchy and complex without being pretentious. Mostly, it's fun. August 9, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...