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Franz Ferdinand: And the Pop Renaissance
Hailed as the first great album of 2004, Franz Ferdinand’s eponymous debut prompted Rolling Stone magazine to name the spiky Scottish band as one of the hot acts of the year. The band also won Britain’s Mercury Music Prize for Album of the Year and three 2005 BRIT Awards. Riding high on their success, and now heard on alt-rock airwaves across the U.S., Franz Ferdinand recently released their second album, You Could Have It So Much Better. This biography places the band’s achievement in the context of the exciting Glasgow music scene from which they emerged; there is also complete coverage of the tours and the first and second albums.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 21, 2025
Pretty awful book that I only read since it'd been sitting on my shelf for a few years after being gifted as a present.
Essentially it just doesn't work as a book because there's not much to say about Franz Ferdinand. I thought that'd be the case going in and it's certainly true. There's no interesting stories or even much insight into the band, it's members and it's material.
This leaves the book filling half it's space with a history of the Glaswegian music scene and interview excerpts from various 'notable' figures of the scene. There's clearly more to write in this book about Glasgows music, and it's telling by the end that these sections are far longer than those about Franz Ferdinand. I found the Glasgow sections interesting enough, however the interviews felt pointless and irrelevant despite the author trying to make odd links to Franz throughout.
Whilst I didn't mind some of the Franz and Glasgow chapters, the chapter structure is all over the place and reads horribly. Notably the decision to start with Franz after the first album for the first half of the book, then switch to the origin story seems bizarre.
In short this book didn't need to be made. I didn't need to read it, I simply did because it was relatively short and I wouldn't feel guilty about then getting rid of it. But it was still mostly a waste of time.
Essentially it just doesn't work as a book because there's not much to say about Franz Ferdinand. I thought that'd be the case going in and it's certainly true. There's no interesting stories or even much insight into the band, it's members and it's material.
This leaves the book filling half it's space with a history of the Glaswegian music scene and interview excerpts from various 'notable' figures of the scene. There's clearly more to write in this book about Glasgows music, and it's telling by the end that these sections are far longer than those about Franz Ferdinand. I found the Glasgow sections interesting enough, however the interviews felt pointless and irrelevant despite the author trying to make odd links to Franz throughout.
Whilst I didn't mind some of the Franz and Glasgow chapters, the chapter structure is all over the place and reads horribly. Notably the decision to start with Franz after the first album for the first half of the book, then switch to the origin story seems bizarre.
In short this book didn't need to be made. I didn't need to read it, I simply did because it was relatively short and I wouldn't feel guilty about then getting rid of it. But it was still mostly a waste of time.
July 23, 2013
Didn't like it. Especially misspelling Bryan Ferry as Brian Ferry made it terrible. The book mostly was about Glasgow and how bands from Glasgow went to London and such. It also contains some interviews with other Glasgow based bands. I think Franz Ferdinand doesn't really have an interesting story so far.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews