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 By Richard Blackledge
…with Franz Ferdinand. Or that was how the record was originally titled,
until a hurried last-minute adjustment left it shorn of the
aforementioned cocky rejoinder. On the evidence of this, the
surprisingly speedy follow-up to their all-conquering, self-titled 2004
debut, it’s fairly obvious why they did it.
A considerably beefier prospect than the previous record, both in
duration and production, ‘You Could Have It So Much Better’ begins with
‘The Fallen’; opening with that old “live-sounding” cliché, murky
feedback, the song’s convoluted lyrics appear to toy with the idea of
Christ reappearing in a limousine – Alex Kapranos’ curiously airless
voice letting the band down for the first (but certainly not the last)
time. The supremely irritating ‘Do You Want To’ is pressed into service
in its aftermath – it’ll take the will of saints for them not to get
bored of singing that chorus on their upcoming arena tour.
The tour seems to loom large over vast swathes of this album; ‘You’re
The Reason I’m Leaving’ (which sounds like the accursed Kaiser Chiefs),
‘What You Meant’ and the title track itself descend into tedious arena
rock – not a term you’d ever have thought applied to Franz Ferdinand.
‘You Could Have It So Much Better’ can bear comparison to Blur’s ‘The
Great Escape’ – both albums were made after critically acclaimed,
agenda-setting predecessors, in the knowledge that the material would
have to fill large venues, resulting in a certain blandness factor
creeping in.
That’s not to say that this record doesn’t have its highlights. Mostly
these come when Franz Ferdinand aren’t obsessed with getting to the
white hot heart of pop. ‘I’m Your Villain’ is a superb, sinister glam
moment, whilst ‘Eleanor Put Your Boots On’ is an unexpected acoustic
ballad, Kapranos unearthing some emotion from inside that cold hipster
heart of his to sing about his girlfriend, Eleanor Friedburger (of the
brilliant but impenetrable Fiery Furnaces).
It’s a patchy record, this – not the masterpiece some have made it out
to be at all. However, if a few of the songs had been dropped, and a
couple worked on for a bit longer, we could indeed have had it so much
better… with Franz Ferdinand.
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