Thanks to the lovely Carmen at the High Court Cafe I have spent the last few days buried deep in the Franz Ferdinand album. There's lots to like: I like their sense of humour; I like the way the second song goes from a snakey Pere Ubu guitar line into a chorus that could be from a sixties garage pop band - say, the Easybeats; I like the Gang of Four references (note the melodica that sneaks in during "40'"). But most of all I like the way all of the "retro" stylings are deployed in the service of such a strong collection of stick-in-your-head pop songs.
Which is the essential difference between Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes: the Strokes (says me) are/were nothing more than a novelty act - a fairly obscure novelty act, admittedly, but a novelty act nonetheless. The instant response to hearing "Is This It" was: my god, these kids have somehow channeled the sound of New York circa 1978. The later, measured response was: where's the meat? Like junk food, the contents of "Is This It" dissipated to nothing immediately after consumption, unable to be recalled. (Okay, you could always hum the line "New York city cops / They ain't that smart", but that was most likely as a result of the publicity surrounding the song rather than the song itself.)
Then for an encore they showed that they could also "do" the Cars. Not much future in that, is there? Whereas Franz have produced eleven songs for the long haul.
