So Franz Ferdinand... I don't get it. I bought the album in April or May, buying into the hype. I read a few articles that said they lived up the hype, and for some reason I bought into that.
 
Full disclosure: I don't fully buy into the whole rock revival thing. There are a few bands I like, though almost despite myself. Hot or not? The Strokes: Not. Interpol: Hot. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Hot. French Kicks: Not. Sometimes I'd just rather listen the Velvet Underground or Television or whatever band is being ripped off. I can't explain my affection for Interpol. They so blatently rip off Joy Division, and the first time I heard the album, I hated it. But the album grew on me; I have no good excuses.
 
The first time I heard the Franz Ferdinand album, I didn't like it at all. It sounded like a British version of the Strokes: kind of lazy, kind of catchy, with that singing style I hate. It's basically crooning. Notes aren't so much hit as slid into. So I put it away after one listen. And I kept reading how people liked it. A lot. So the other day I was on washingtonpost.com, in a music chat. I loved the Pernice Brothers, Long Winters, and New Pornographers albums last summer. I lived off those albums; they made me undeniably happy. Just a constant three-album rotation, with some Ted Leo and Hot Hot Heat thrown in. And this summer, nothing has come close. I like Wilco a lot, but it's not a constant roatation album. The Roots I'm just starting on now, but I don't know about its staying power. Actually, a lot of times I still thrown in The Long Winters' When I Pretend to Fall when I've worn out a new album. I asked the music critic for some recommednations, and he mentioned, along with a couple other suggestions: 
  

The Franz Ferdinand album is really fun, too. Band is better live, but still. 

 
  
So Franz Ferdinand: maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I have to go back. Maybe I didn't realize how great it was.
 
No, I was right.
 
It's just... yeah, the British Strokes. There's not a lot there, under the surface. It's got some catchy music, but nothing that moves me. Maybe I'm just cold. But nothing on this album moves me. It's so very twee, pretend witty, and yeah, cold. Like a tundra. There's absolutely nothing that makes you believe in this band, that exists behind the artiface to draw you any deeper. Now, I like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, I like Rocket from the Crypt a lot. I'm not adverse to just going out and shaking my ass, having my hips appealed to more than my heart or head. But there's almost a low-rent "pedantic" (to, ironically, borrow a word from the Post writer, when he was talking about The Jam) nature to them, like they're studying passion and rhythm and ass-shaking, instead of diving headfirst into it. The more I think about it, it's probably the same problem I have with the Strokes: they seem numbed by some drug that makes them able to talk the talk but not walk the walk. Maybe Franz Ferdinand's problem is their numbing drug is being British, but without any intelligence. Blur and Pulp can be dispassionate and cold, but I think Damon and Jarvis are smart guys, and can turn a witty line. There's not too much witty in a line like "It's so much better on holiday/ So much better on holiday/ That's why we only work when/ We need the money." It feels haughty, it feels proud for no good reason. And it's just there. They could have repeated "box turtle" throughout the song and had the same effect. Lou Reed could pull it off because it was new and exciting when he did it, and even in his simple lyrics, he seemed to understand irony at the heart of it, not just because he knew the definition. There was a side of him that was pathetic, and he knew it.
 
And maybe this is why I like Interpol: while they rip off Joy Division, that kind of dread transcends, and it works on any level. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for a band I like for no explainable reason. I'm all aboard. Franz Ferdinand... I just can't ride that train.