Month of October , 2005

I've constructed this review of Franz Ferdinand's latest long-player "You Could Have It So Much Better" from fragments of pitchforkmedia.com's review of Liz Phair's "Somebody's Miracle", which was appropriately written on the same day as their review for "You Could..." Edits are in brackets. Cease and Desist, here I come!

[Franz Ferdinand] deliver the follow-up to that album.

Now this is a [] terrible record. [You Could Have It So Much Better] is mostly generic pap that any number of next-big-[things] could have cranked out, a useless piece of [shit] poking a [skinny tie] in the eye of the carcass of [new wave].

Sound familiar?

I know I may be in the minority 'round these parts, but I actually [dis]like [Franz]'s 2003 self-titled trainwreck. Yes, it's desperate and confused and comes on to you like [your uncle in a gay bar]. For all of those reasons, I find it quite [self-absorbed], not to mention [pompous]. I mean, we're still talking about it, aren't we? When was the last time you got into [bed] over Stephan Mathieu & Ekkehard Ehlers' Heroin, which Pitchfork reviewed [] and gave an 8.6? Isn't that why we fell in love with [Franz] in the first place, because [they] made us angry and uncomfortable [after sex]?

In hindsight, the 0.0 bomb was wasted on [Travis Morrison's Travistan], because it's much better than ["You Could Have It So Much Better"]. [Franz's] rockers [are] sticky-sweet Matrix-pop at its best-- cheesy, tacky, glamorous, and yes, radio- and MTV-friendly. Of course, not everything on [YCHSMB] sucks like [Paul McCartney]; a few songs suck in other ways.

Ok, that's as far as I'll go with that charade.

Franz Ferdinand continue to shamelessly plunder their influences, and in the process sap all the wisdom, substance, and grace from their source material. In this essence, they are the perfect band for the Ignorant 00's. Dance dance dance, forget what exactly you are dancing about, but just keep on fucking doing it. Songs pretend to be about heartache and girls, but deal with those issues in such matter-of-fact and sly manners that every single note of this album is devoid of any honesty and earnestness.

No matter what the fasionistas over at PFM have to say about that, you simply cannot chide The Killers, et al, and let Franz slide by with the same excuse simply because they rip off The Beatles from time to time. Derivative, emotionless, soulless, fashion magazine rock.