...is mutual

Best NEW BAND of the year

Franz Ferdinand
Scotish rock boys in skinny belts get the modern-rock crowd to come dancing By Marc Spitz

These days it's practically heroic to include more than three good songs on an album. The Glasweigan art boys in Franz Ferdinand had 11 on their self-titled debut, inspiring more than 600,000 U.S. fans (only a few thousands of them hipsters) to buy it. With the slashing opening chord of the album's smash "Take Me Out", Franz announced a template shift in the hot modern-rock sound of the year --from ´60s-inspired American garage punk to '80s-inspired English new wave--that managed to be both progressive and retro.

I was initially shocked that so many people were dancing at your shows. I'd expect the crowds to be pretty arty--to cool to dance. In a way, I think that's been the curse of alternative music--this horrible plague of elitism: "I'm cool because I like music that you don't know about." I've always hated that attitude. The most important reaction is that primal reaction. The best art you appreciate on a primal level. You hear a riff or a vocal line--you don't think, you just move.

SPIN.COM THE YEAR IN MUSIC 2004. JANUARY 2005. pg. 52/53.