Back in the early 2000s, in the wake of The Strokes leading the charge to make guitar music cool again, indie rock guitar bands were everywhere. Countless groups that have long since faded into obscurity for failing to create something unique or long-lasting. That’s certainly not the case with the subject of this month’s Good Vibes review. March 2024 mark twenty years since the full release of Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled debut album.
Packed to the brim with sharp hooks, catchy guitar riffs, driving basslines and toe-tapping, dance-worthy drum beats, ‘Franz Ferdinand’ remains as fresh, relevant, and consistently enjoyable as it was upon its release.
We have to say, it makes a lot of sense that this band and this album would be amongst Penta’s favourites. It’s smart without being pretentious, it’s slick and stylish in its design with a true focus on attention to detail, and above all else, it’s fun. And we haven’t even mentioned the German and British cocktail going on; see the song title ‘”Auf Achse” and the outro to “Darts of Pleasure”.
Of course, the album is anchored by mega-hit and anthem “Take Me Out” which by now has over 800 million streams on Spotify alone. That’s not to say that it stands out or above the other songs on ‘Franz Ferdinand’, in our humble opinion this is a record with no weak tracks, from start to finish. So much so that we couldn’t decide on just one to go in this month’s Penta Sounds playlist, meaning we ended up not including any! (Don’t worry, it’s still packed with amazing songs and worth listening to.)
Moving back to our Scottish friends, we are far from being alone in our praise for this album. NME awarded it a 9/10, the Guardian gave it 5 stars, and hipsters choice and notoriously critical music publication Pitchfork gave it a 9.1 out of 10 rating. Oh, and it also won the 2004 Mercury Prize, arguably the most prestigious annual music award in British music. When you add this critical acclaim to millions of copies being sold and a clear positive public opinion, we think it’s fair to say we’re talking about something quite special.
So, happy birthday from us to a fantastic album. If you haven’t heard it in a while, we cannot recommend enough that you give it a re-listen, if you’ve never heard it before, stick it on and we’re certain you’ll find yourself tapping your feet or maybe even dancing around a little bit.
To finish off, we want to shoehorn in a reference to a line from the first song on the album ‘Jacqueline’, that maybe, just maybe, you should think about next time you are on the fence thinking about booking a stay with us…
“It's always better on holiday, so much better on holiday”.
Still credits: “Franz Ferdinand Glastonbury live 2004” uploaded to YouTube by Fabián Marilao
