Paperjam

Will Franz Ferdinand change your life?

Music // Jim // 14th February 2004

At what seem increasing frequent intervals the music press announces loudly "This band will change your life!". Typically this means some bunch of indie darlings will be hyped beyond all reasonable belief after doing a couple of half decent singles and then plough manfully into the mainstream, eventually turning out to be a bit shit, like we all suspected they actually were. Radiohead, Coldplay, The Strokes and Oasis have all trod this treacherous path, hugely successful but no real credibility with ver kids anymore.

In other cases these supposed musical idols just turn out to be a bit shit (The Vines, Jet, The Thrills). According to recently published government statistics at least three thousand former NME cover stars are currently working in accountancy. There is a lesson there for all of us.

The only hugely hyped band band I ever really latched onto was Suede, The Drowners was ace, Metal Mickey on Top of the Pops was a shock to my 17 year-old system and Animal Nitrate repeated endlessly on my poxy car stereo 'til the battery was flat. The first album was a real event and I loved Dog Man Star too (I should also admit that I was the one who liked Stay Together as well).

Lost interest after that to be honest, Bernard Butler left and both parties ended up making much less interesting stuff. Despite being really into the music at the time I can't really say that Suede changed my life. It could certainly be demonstrated that they led me deeper into the bedroom miserabilist indie music phase that I have never really left. But on the other hand I never bought second hand shirts from Oxfam, grew my hair long on one side, pretended to be gay for fashionable effect or got hooked on smack. So, for me, the jury is out on the "Bands changing your life" theory.

In a round-a-bout sort of way this brings us to Scottish art-school types Franz Ferdinand: We were all impressed by the jaunty, changes-in-the-middle catchiness of the single Take Me Out. I foolishly tried to buy it a week early while late night shopping in London, half-cut and boring someone stupid with why she should definitely buy Screamadelica:
Her (listening): "I don't really like it"
Me (confidently): "You should definitely still get it"
Her (entirely reasonably): "Why, if I don't like it?"
Me (struggling): "errrrr, don't know ..... It is great though ..... honest"

Anyway, the FF single was procured from Woolworths where it seemed to be doing rather well. The rest is history as Take Me Out stormed the charts to the heights of number 3 and the NME wet itself over the whole thing. Franz Ferdinand have now joined the ranks of the "Life Changers" will they fare any better than the title's previous incumbants? After listening to the self-titled album that came out on Monday a few times, I'm not really sure.

FF stitched up by the NME

Clocking in at an extremely civil 37 minutes this is an album which isn't as imposing a debut as Suede or The Smiths, but certainly holds its own against Is This It. In my humble (and lets be honest staggeringly uninformed) opinion the problem is that a couple of the tracks, which sound like they could be storming live numbers, come across like naff b-sides here. Cheating On You should definitely have been swapped for the super All For You, Sophia off the last single.

On the plus side the big hit is here in the full, non-fucked around by Radio 1 version plus some other top tunes:
Darts Of Pleasure which includes a big shouty German finale and has shades of the Stranglers.
Michael, the standard bi-curiousity that all proper break-out indie bands must supply. This is probably the best track on the album and appears to have been co-written by Chris Morris: "dancing like a beautiful dance-whore".
Album closer 40ft is a bit of a stomper for the young and reckless to lose their beer to.

I could pretend that I know all about Gang Of Four and say that FF sound like them but I won't. Influences I can make out include Kuff Dam by the Happy Mondays, some Blondie songs and a load of 80s/90s indie music. The upshot being that this is music that you can actually dance to it, rather than doing the standard alternation between the bez shuffle/jumping up and down like a twat that is often adopted at any gig mired by the indie/alternative label.

In essence I liked it but it could have been a touch better. If this was the sort of web site that gave marks out of ten, Franz Ferdinand would just about get an 8.

As for the life changing properties of FF and their music, I'm not sure. The only way that I can see this changing anyone's life is that any 18 year-old wanting to be a Franz Ferdinnand disciple is going to have to get a shave and wear some slightly smarter clothes.

Which is almost precisely what I am told everyday.

Some other links..

Franz Ferdinand

The FF web site with tour dates, downloads etc

FF fan site

The first fan site that Google threw up

The NME

Radiohead news and views