AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL PIECE. learned absolutely nothing new or interesting about the band. read as if it was "my first rock interview" i wouldnt even use it as cat litter, it was that bad

It's for the Irish Times magazine. Not for Pitchfork media. Why not consider the target readership before you condemn the article - in my book it seemed perfectly competent.

I don't understand when people say "but it's for the Irish Times" as if the readers don't know s**t about music themselves, or bands, or people for that matter. That's what's wrong with Irish journalism as a whole. A low standard is excusable based on an uninformed view of readership.

Didn't think it was particularly bad. Just in no way interesting.

that has got nothing to do with the quality of writing!

I can see this developing into he said she said but..... I would suggest that it has everything to do with the quality of the writing/news gathering. With Net, radio and TV all around with the breaking news, it's the very fact that print is print, and quality print, that keeps the above publications profitable. Unless you count Hot Press (the exception that proves it all). Mind you, I agree that the Franz F piece was mind-numbingly bland.

it used to be said that there are only 4 or 5 stories in the world and the same can sometimes be applied to brilliant arguments on Cluas like this one! yes, papers tailor their content to match their readership. The Irish Times has realised that its readership is dying off (literally, in some cases - its the same thing which happened to the Daily Telegraph when Max Hastings took over, as he points out in his brilliant book Editor) and theyre going after The Kids. However, despite what they might think at their weekly meetings and think-ins, they're not going to get The Kids with bland-as-f**k articles like Anna Carey's Franz Ferdinand piece. The Kids are much, much smarter than that. And they want pieces on Led Zep, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. Think I'm joking? Check out what your kid brother is listening to. The Franz intv would have been much different and probably much better if it had been done by one of the Ticket's music writers - Brian Boyd or Jim Carroll. But if u read the paper week in and week out, u will see that neither do much stuff for The Magazine for some reason (taste, laziness, too busy) so that wasnt going to happen and we got the awful piece we got. Thin Man dude is right - we still put more trust in print because of the quality of the news gathering machine. which is why when the mainstream media tackle music culture issues, we're all so annoyed. we know from web and new media that music and culture can be tackled in very interesting, innovative and vibey ways so when old media mess it up (like the Franz piece), we all rightly get on our high horses