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intereact!Franz Ferdinand
Retail Price (not our price): $13.98
Release Date: 2004-04-20
Manufacturer: Sony
Format: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Track List
Now here, for your listening pleasure, the tracks...
| Disc 1 |
Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Amazon.com
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
Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5
1) Stands a damn good chance of becoming a classic [Rating: 4 out of 5]
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.2) Follow lead [Rating: 5 out of 5]
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.3) very danceable and worth repeated listening [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I play this one quite a lot, because there are so many great tracks on it. It's great to dance to, though you can also use it for ambient music while you are cleaning or something equally mundane, just to liven things up a bit. If there is another FF album, I would be interested in it.4) One of the decade's most overhyped albums. (3.5) [Rating: 3 out of 5]
Okay, so in spite the title, the record isn't really bad. However, in spite the glowing reviews of praise, it isn't anything extraordinary or even ground-breaking for that matter. There are too many bands to name of the past 25+ years who played "post-punk" that played in a similar vein to this group. Yet for some reason people go ga-ga on this. I suppose it's another case of the guys being British, and critics just love those kinds of bands. The comparisons to the Strokes made a lot of sense when it was out, as they merely worked better for the release time than actually had a whole lot of verve going on.There is a certain style to the tracks, I have to admit. It's fairly catchy and not that hard to get into. I particularly am a fan of the lead single "Take Me Out," with its minute-long intro having a classic melody and then it goes into its dance-rock mode for the rest of the song. While I'm kind of glad the hi-hat has been brought back into music during the type of "in" indie music of the past few years, I've heard other bands pull this off in a much more interesting manner. The tracks are fine enough, but can also be a bit redundant and can get old after awhile. There are other moments that I like and it's entertaining so I guess it can work for you. And some of those moments include things like the opening chords of "40" and the record was nicely enough produced.I suppose it will work for you but while entertaining, it's not that special at all. It seems that in its context people don't even remember the record quite as well as when it was first released.5) A modern classic [Rating: 5 out of 5]
This album won numerous album of the year awards from music magazines and deserved the praise. Franz Ferdinand is an incredibly fun band to listen to and you won't regret picking this album up.