Arctic Monkeys vs. Franz Ferdinand

I’ll keep the suspense for tomorrow on my final review of It Might Get Loud. Just before I head out to a corporate shindig I’ll sound off on another battle of the 00’s bands. Last time I pitted Arctic Monkeys vs. Kaiser Chiefs and gave the nod to AM. Well, this time I did a head-to-head of Franz Ferdinand against reigning champ the Arctic Monkeys.

Listening to Franz, I got a little bored to be honest. Maybe it’s the mix – the bass doesn’t really come in strong enough and the lyrics rest rather flat and unaggressive. When I switched over to AM, I instinctively cranked the volume to 11. The bass line is much stronger, the guy is banging on those skins and the music has a much more “fuck you” rock-n-roll feel to it. I mean rather than hearing about a guy NOT picking up a girl at a party in “Take Me Out”, I’d rather fantasize about getting the girl like in “Still Take You Home”. I guess that’s how I feel some rock-n-roll needs to be…I tried listening again to Franz and just got bored with each song to be honest. There is a bit of spunk there but again not enough “fuck you”. I mean when I switched back to Franz, I turned the volume DOWN again. Switching back again to “Fake Tales of San Francisco”, and turning the volume to 11 once again, I thought of comparing them to The Hold Steady in terms of the edge and the song writing. OK, so HS is more Minnesota and the drugs are a little harder but the storytelling format and the attitude is pretty similar IMHO. Do you agree? Feel free to comment…

Perhaps I am just getting too old but I have to give the nod to Arctic Monkeys again even though as previously mentioned, their latest Humbug sucks rocks.