Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better

Artist: Franz Ferdinand

Title: You Could Have It So Much Better

Label: Sony

Rating: 6.5/10

FILE UNDER: The Kinks meet themselves.

CORPORATE LINE: YCHISMB sounds like Franz Ferdinand, but not like their first record. It’s unarguably them. It seems impossible for them to play in a room together and for it to not sound like them. They didn’t want to repeat themselves, though. Where’s the fun in doing the same thing twice? They’ve gone a bit further in a few directions they hinted at before. There’s more passion and emotion. Walk Away twists through the darkness of a romantic tragedy. The Fallen is dramatic defiance, blood, violence and playful satire over Zeppelin sized riffs. Outsiders revels in alienation and puts it to a beat and a heart-thumping bass. It has the other-worldliness of Joe Meek and the dance-floor hypnotism of Morodor. Fade Together is delicate with a piano, acoustic guitar and lonely voice. Do You Want To, the first single, is Pop with huge cartoon-catchy riffs, irreverence and an easy nonchalance which belies the underlying complexity.

This album has more width and depth. The group that wanted to do more than they’d done before. While sticking rigidly to the idea that there shouldn’t be anything on the record that they didn’t play themselves, there are more sounds and richer sounds. There’s a desire to be adventurous, without ramming it home. To be ambitious with the arrangements and the melody, to do things that we haven’t heard in music before, without drawing attention to them. They didn’t want people to think “hmm, these guys are really smart”, but “oh, that was a good bit”. You hear that sense of adventure occasionally in pop music.

THE GREAT:
“The Fallen” – Oh how these boys can bring the Kinks back to live. Even if you don’t care about Franz Ferdinand one way or another—if you hear this on radio you will be inclined to sing along.
“Do You Want To” – If “The Fallen” will make you want to move then “Do You Want To” will make you want to dance, dance, dance. This is one of the catchiest songs you’ll hear all year!
“Walk Away” – This song rocks—definitely my favorite song on the album. “I love the sound of you walking away.”

THE AVERAGE:
“This Boy” – If ever there was a huge drop off from one song to the next it would be “The Boy” following “Do You Want To.”
“Evil and a Heathen” – Hmmmm. Within the grand scheme of all the really great songs this lays flat.

THE BAD:
Nothing.

FRANKLY: Everything was going so right with You Could Have It So Much Better until track seven comes along and the album takes a fall. The final two tracks are the biggest misses.

Franz Ferdinand can rock. Right now there is no one better and making rocks songs that catch you the moment you hear them and rock you until they end. You Could Have It So Much Better should have been titled You Could have Been So Much Better. It’s close to great—but not close enough.

+ Rae Gun