This is half-pie.

Now that I am no longer a paid up member of modern yoof it is my right to be behind the times in matters of pop culture.

And so it comes to pass that I discover Franz Ferdinand. Apparently not the Archduke shot at Sarajevo whose assassination triggered the First World War, but in fact a Musickal Group.

I’d been meaning to check out their album from last year… and found my opportunity in the bargain bin at Sounds. (It seems that $14.95 for a relatively rare double CD edition is quite a good buy, and I am told that one enterprising chap has purchased a job lot for sale on eBay. He’ll lose a bundle.)

Waiting until the next album comes out before purchasing the previous one seems, on reflection, to be a strategy I have adopted many times in my declining years. Not needing to be on the edge of musical purchasing certainly saves shedloads of money, a trick that would have come in handy fifteen years ago.

So, Franz Ferdinand’s Franz Ferdinand. I think I like it. I think it’ll make great walking to work music. But it all sounds a little derivative – excepting the driving drums (and not always even those) I am constantly reminded of late seventies / early eighties greats The Monochrome Set.

Bet that takes you out back.

There’s nowt new in pop music. But who would have it any other way?