Franz Ferdinand has generated a lot of press and hubbub for their debut record this year (by that I mean 2004, not 2005). It's popped up on a lot of year-end Top 10 lists (thankfully not Questionable Content's), cited for its unique "dance-able" rock music. I believe I even read somewhere in Rolling Stone or some other equally shitty music publication that Franz Ferdinand have made rock music "fun again." I disagree vehemently. They have made a dance-able rock album that is fun, sure. But what really annoys me is how much credit people are giving them for that sound. I just listened to Make Up The Breakdown by Hot Hot Heat, which came out in 2002, two years before Franz Ferdinand ever blasted the radio with their angular guitars and dance-club beats, and that album is simply wonderful. It does what Franz Ferdinand does, with fun dance-able rock music, but without the whole phony, semi-pretentious art-school front. Unfortunately, I don't know what the hell people at Pitchfork and elsewhere were doing in 2002, but the record seems to remain obscure, and it is Franz Ferdinand in 2004 that gets all the attention and adulation. On the one hand, I'm glad Hot Hot Heat haven't gotten MTV-ified like Franz Ferdinand; certainly, it's more fitting that the copy-cat band be the one to sell-out to corporate music and all that. But they certainly deserve more than what Franz Ferdinand has. This is what pisses me off about indie rock, or at least, the indie rock that is crossing over into mainstream radio. The decisions are just so arbitrary, and sometimes downright wrong. If you liked Franz Ferdinand, please check out Hot Hot Heat and agree with me.
While I'm on the subject of annoying faux-indie bands, let me shit on Interpol for a while. I also just listened to their new album this year, Antics, and it makes me want to puke, or writhe around in a bed full of razors or something--not because it's a bad album, really. It would sound OK if I had never heard of Interpol before. But I just can't stand that it is Interpol that's doing this. For their sophomore effort, they've traded in their "sweeping" style guitar on their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, for a more rock-oriented "angular" style (I can't define "angular," by the way, but I know it when I hear it), breaking it down with a couple of dance beats on occasion as well. Let me say this once: I DO NOT PUT ON AN INTERPOL RECORD TO HEAR THAT HORSESHIT. I loved Turn On The Bright Lights for its sonic aural soundscapes, created by reverberating guitars and echoing lyrics that sounded dark and ominous. Turn On The Bright Lights had this looming sound to it that at first listen made me think they could compete with Radiohead. Ha! Leave the Radiohead-emulating to Muse, I guess. Antics, save maybe one-and-a-half exceptions, is a bunch of half-hearted attempts at crossing over into Strokes-style guitar-driven songs that make me want to vomit, because not only are Interpol not suited for Strokes-style guitar-driven songs, given Paul Banks and Daniel Kessler's vocal style, which is moody, somber, and a bit like how you'd imagine a young mortician might sing, but they had been doing so much better the other way with their first album. Strokes-style music requires exuberance, energy, and a little bit of fun playfulness from its vocalist, and Interpol's singers just can't get out of the coffin long enough to sound like that. Not only that, the lyrics Interpol can come up with are still gloomy and dystopian, so even if they tried to sing like Julian Casablancas, what they're singing still doesn't fit. If I want to listen to Strokes-style guitars, I'll put on a Strokes record. I go to Interpol for their darker, sweeping sonic sound, and Antics is a huge disappointment. They basically sound like your regular guitar/bass/drums setup now, with only slight aural tweaks like the occasional two-second guitar reverb and echoing vocals. Those things need to be the basis of their work, not an afterthought. Listening to Antics for me was like watching morticians trying to dance with their corpses. Hence, nausea. At one point, two seconds into the song "C'mere," I had actually thought the album was over and my iPod had moved on to the next artist, the intro to that song was that egregiously non-Interpol. Honestly, the only way to recognize Interpol now is when someone is singing. I really hate to throw this accusation around, but given the timing of their newfound fame and success, I'm going to have to say it, and say it gravely: Interpol are sell-outs. I'm giving them one more album before I put them away with the Hybrid Theory/Linkin Park travesty. (For those who didn't know, Hybrid Theory changed their name to Linkin Park in 1999 in order to appear right next to Limp Bizkit in your local record bin; it was probably the dealmaker when they signed to Warner Bros. in late 1999, after being turned down three times previously that year. It is one of the most flagrant and heinous acts of selling out ever witnessed by the underground music industry, to change your band's name to sound like corporate crap so that you can be signed by a major corporate label in order to make more corporate crap. It's a doozy.)
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