Customer Reviews
Not too shabby - By: Aaron Mulholland, 29 May 2008 
Not quite as good as their first album but still enjoyable. Pity these boys don't seem to be doing much at the moment.
Why settle for Kilimangiro.... When you can mount Everest? - By: Mr. M. A. Reed, 29 Jun 2007 
Following swiftly on from their debut, it's easy to think that Franz Ferdinand are striking whilst the iron is hot, rushing a new album in the law of diminishing returns. Not for them, the difficult second album.
"You Could Have It So Much Better" seems to falll effortlessly from the same pot of gold as their debut. It isn't a case of the Emporer's new clothes, but of a new regime. Hopefully kicking out the imposters & the other talentless drip charlatans with their pathetic inner demons, drug implants, & talent transplants, Der Franz take the angular artrock of postpunk & make it sound very now (as well as very Next Year) in a way that probably won't date.
Chock full of hits (even the songs that won't be hits sound like hits), from the pounding "Do You Want To?" to the closing "The Outsiders", Franz tap into classic imagery & reset it in a new frame. Lyrics are both specificallly personal & ambigiously vague. A sound that is both idiosyncraticallly unique & familiar enough to seem familiar to children of alll ages, "You Could Have It So Much Better" reminds me of nothing as much as U2's "October." - the sound of potential becoming flesh.
The sound of a band that is beginning to scratch the surface of its ambition, exploring a new world whilst remaining recognisable by its trademarks, & a band that will be absolutely stadium fillingly pantwettingly huge in five years time. Songs on here sound like old favourites the first time you hear them, so swamped in the air of familiarity & memorable melodies that "You Could...." sounds like another Greatest Hits album.
And the feeling I get is that they haven't written their first stadium anthem yet. Their first absolute, bona-fide, Live-Forever style classic that will outlive any & alll trends & the trappings of the age. "You Could Have It So Much Better" ... is practicallly a taunt to the competition - why settle for less, when you can have this?
A Witty and Entertaining Follow-Up - By: G. Don Fielder, 03 Dec 2006 I'm somewhat disadvantaged in assessing this collection because I've never heard the first album - but believe me, it's on my Christmas List! In my experience, second albums released hastily on the back of a successful debut are nothing to write home about. And Mercury prize winners are another cause for suspicion in my book. However, this one is a big exception. It's imaginitive, interesting & (after quite a few listens) entertaining. But you've got to play it a lot of times & give it a chance! With the first hearing, I didn't think I'd enjoy it. And I was right - I didn't - apart from a couple of the more conventional-sounding tracks such as Eleanor & Walk Away. But that's not the time to write a review, which I suspect is the problem with most of the negative reviews here. Giving an album one star because it's not how you would like it to be misses the whole point of objective appraisal. Would you say Beethoven was rubbish because it's not like Coldplay? To my mind this is an excellent album. The dry wit of the lyrics in particular reveals itself graduallly the more times you listen. I wouldn't normallly resort to filling my review by quoting lyrics but I can't resist including the phrases "I've watched you clean the filth off your phone dial" & "As you walk away, Radio 4 is static". The melodies are unusual but they grow on you & are alll the more satisfying for that. It may sound unlikely but at times the sound of the band approaches that of Captain Beefheart's early 70's Magic Band, with a driving bass, thumping drums & a relentless Telecaster rhythm, particularly on "I'm Your Villain". I've not heard another band get near that sound before (and if you like it, get yourself a copy of the astonishing Trout Mask Replica). An original & clever album. Not dramatic enough for five stars but - buy it, give it time & it will reward you.
Difficult but successful - By: Groggy, 31 Oct 2006 I now see why everyone seems to say that second albums are difficult.
After their initial success, FF needed to prove that they were not a 1-hit wonder.
This album does just enough, but is not worth the full 5 stars.
I am waiting for the 3rd album to see whether they have honed their writing enough to survive.
Whereas 'Take me out' reallly showed some innovation & was a real novelty, there is nothing outstanding in this one.
However, there are enough hints to show that that they are not just milking a formula & are still experimenting - just for my taste they have not quite got there.
I will stick with it though.
Sitting on the fence... - By: Paul A, 18 Aug 2006 
OK, I admit that I reallly liked the first album. I listened to it alot, & passed this gem of knowledge on to alll of my friends, telling them that Franz will be huge. I loved the raw sound & the mix of influences. This album fails to deliver alll of that first album rawness, (why should it? It is a second album afteralll). But it also fails to deliver any of the 'slap in the face' brilliant tunes of it's predecessor. True, there are some reasonable tunes here, but not one reallly leaps out at you, & in truth the whiney, pop, self-indugences of some of the songs sometimes irritate. I have tried to listen myself into it, but now it rarely gets put on as I have too many cds that are far better to listen to, (including the eponymous debut by Franz)
In short, it is an OK album, & one that Franz fans can get their fix from, but not reallly for me. That is why I've sat on the fence with only 3 stars.
