I know, I know. Look, I didn’t want to make Franz fucking Ferdinand Single
Of The Week either – but the fact
of the matter remains that they’re
neatly-coiffed head and smartly-clad shoulders above the rest of the slack-jawed, hate-fuelled misanthropes who’ve dragged their weary backsides onto the Singles page elsewhere this week.
It’s ‘right place, right time’ gone mad for [a]Franz Ferdinand[/a] these days. Magazines, radio and TV can’t get enough of their waxy moustache-twirling tunarisms, while the Honest To Goodness Public are buying their records in numbers that suggest their pointless, hollow lives depend on it.
Is this what they mean by a win/win situation? And are there likely to be finer opening lines to a pop record this year than, “Take your white finger, slide the nail under/The top and bottom buttons of/My blazer”? And, if there is, can someone promise me it’ll be set to a verse that’s bespectacled, ginger-haired, angular pop funk with crumbs on its top and a chorus that’s stridently, poundingly (pan)sexual? And have a slowed-down jazzy drop-out bit in it about meeting Terry Wogan? And can the band dress up a lot? And be interesting? And know about other stuff than shit bands and old records? And can it be played on Radio 4 almost as much as it is on Radio 1? Quite a lot to ask, sure, but if it’s going to be anything as good, as instantly loveable and as likely to make you want to greet random strangers with a kindness you’d usually reserve for a cherished pornographer, then it’ll need to have its shoes shined and its hair combed to a pretty elevated degree.
‘Matinée’ will be a massive hit. [a]Franz Ferdinand[/a] will
follow it with an even bigger one. Who’s ready to take them on? Anyone? Yes yes, put your hand down Johnny Borrell, we’ve seen you already.
Rob Fitzpatrick
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