Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| A.V. Club | (favorable) |
| NME | (9/10) |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.3/10) |
| PopMatters | |
| Robert Christgau | A− |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Guardian | |
| The Observer | |
| Uncut | |
| Yahoo! Music | (9/10) |
The album received universal acclaim by music critics with a score 83 of 100 on Metacritic. Pitchfork Media gave the album an 8.3 out of 10 and complimented the band on returning with a "big ridiculous stomper, a song whose hooks get so happily ballroom-glam you'd almost think they stole them from the Sweet or the Bay City Rollers-- the kind of song most bands wouldn't be able to pull off without telegraphing a whole lot of irony and embarrassment". Other positive responses are included here:
- Rolling Stone (No. 985, p. 75) - 3.5 out of 5 stars - "You Could Have It So Much Better" shows deeper roots in the first wave of white electric dance music: specifically the crunchy-guitar R&B and arch-garage songwriting of 1965–1967 Kinks...."
- Spin (p.65) - Ranked #3 in Spin's "40 Best Albums Of 2005" - "Their second disc builds on the kraut-disco of their debut, but frontman Alex Kapranos' dubious sensitivity makes 'You could have it' so much better than its predecessor." (p. 132) - "Kapranos' voice is a marvelous wide-eyed sneer.... sounds exactly like what you'd expect, with pumping disco beats and lookin'-sharp guitars on track after propulsive track." - Grade: B+
- Entertainment Weekly (No. 844, p. 147) - "...Shows Franz Ferdinand working harder and sounding bigger, befitting their stature as rock's saviors of the moment...." - Grade B+
- Mojo (p. 58) - Ranked #11 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2005" - "An imperious state-of-the-nation address delivered with ease."(p. 94) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Musically, the palette has grown without getting out of hand. Lead guitarist Nick McCarthy appears to have an inexhaustible well of singable guitar riffs: pungent, perfunctory, and hardly ever pretty..."
- Vibe (p. 210) - "It overflows with danceable beats and catchy hooks".
Read more about this topic: You Could Have It So Much Better
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)