Hum, I 'm there too. And I dislike them even a bit more since I have read an interview of Kapranos saying they have been heavily influenced by Joe Meek for the production of this record... Joe Meek + crunk + british indie rock sounds like the best thing ever, but I just can't hear it in this record.
― snowballing (snowballing), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 16:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 19:29 (eighteen years ago) link
Jeez, you think?! It's as straight a McCartney homage as you can possibly imagine (down to the Live and Let Die-like break).
― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 19:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 19:33 (eighteen years ago) link
For instance, the new album's first track (at least on the press copy), "The Fallen," starts with a vintage 1966 garage-rock riff, sounding as if they're the Strangeloves having just heard "Smokestack Lightning" for the very first time and walking into their first recording session and slicing away at it. So, Franz Ferdinand work this riff for 20 seconds and then abandon it and play nothing else like it not only for the rest of the song but for the rest of the album. And the sorrowful Kinks-like melody that starts "Take Me Out" (and is abandoned 45 seconds in) isn't unique among new wavers for sounding like the Kinks but for being good enough to have been an actual Kinks melody back when the Kinks wrote the best melodies in the world. And Franz Ferdinand have got a few more Kinks-quality tune shards scattered through their oeuvre, which is several more than anyone else these days. I do wish they wouldn't make everything sound frazzled and jittery (but then their frazzled jitters have a lot more life than, say, Gang of 4's, which always sounded as if the band were wearing cement overshoes); the "energy" gets in the way of the beautiful riff in "Auf Asche," but the riff itself is worthy of Jon St. James and Stacey Q, again not something I'm used to in the new wave.
I wouldn't say I've got a complete bead on what these fellows are up to, with their stapled together song forms and their frenetic spazzdom. So, it doesn't sound "oh, I've heard this all before" to me.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 21:29 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't see so much of GO4 or Orange Juice as everyone else seems to, there's a rocking 'mach shau' vibe which was definitely absent from those uptight, ironic post-punkers.
― Soukesian, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link
*but i know what it means in the real, dictionary way! I NEVER Forgot that scene in Reality Bites where Winona getz BUSTED! I vowed to never let that happen to me.
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 21:58 (eighteen years ago) link
xp
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:12 (eighteen years ago) link
-- djdee2005 (esli...), May 6th, 2004.Me OTM.
― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:16 (eighteen years ago) link
What about Annie?
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Not quite as ferocious as Swell Maps, of course.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 22:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 23:14 (eighteen years ago) link
not quite good as Swell Maps, I should add :)
― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 07:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― bham, Wednesday, 12 October 2005 08:00 (eighteen years ago) link
Maybe if you're talking about overall aesthetic vision. But as far as songcraftmanship and playing abilities go, they ARE as good.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Wednesday, 12 October 2005 15:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― If You Don't Love the Preachers Fuck You (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 22 March 2009 10:12 (fifteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIR5vBiC3ig
awesomely NSFW
― Cap'n Save-a-Co. (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 September 2013 14:21 (eleven years ago) link
looks who's backhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAMSo-UUQAAWNFr.jpg:large
― PaulTMA, Friday, 19 May 2017 13:44 (seven years ago) link
paul thomson on the verge of going full pauline mccafferty there
― Drive Your Lover Wild In Bed By Cosplaying As Jeff Lynne (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 19 May 2017 17:03 (seven years ago) link
didn't realize their line-up had changed - guitarist left and they got a new guitarist, they also added a keyboard player - and was very confused by that picture
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 19 May 2017 17:08 (seven years ago) link
think paul is getting a bit too close to tim burgess hair there tbh
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 19 May 2017 17:11 (seven years ago) link
Kapranos looks like Dave Mustaine. That is one weird photo.
― grawlix (unperson), Friday, 19 May 2017 17:26 (seven years ago) link
Now way am I buying that Kapranos is only 27 years old
― PaulTMA, Friday, 19 May 2017 18:06 (seven years ago) link
Born: March 20, 1972 (age 45)
― kurt schwitterz, Friday, 19 May 2017 19:20 (seven years ago) link
the joke is that when they were emerging in 2004 his age was - i suppose intentionally and possibly out of vanity - given as 27 when he was in fact in his early 30s at the time.
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 19 May 2017 19:24 (seven years ago) link
internet win of 2017.
― stirmonster, Saturday, 20 May 2017 03:22 (seven years ago) link
they're playing northampton (ma) in two weeks and i really want to go
― maura, Sunday, 21 May 2017 09:56 (seven years ago) link
lol uh is their new guitarist my buddy donald?? he did not tell me about this development
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 21 May 2017 10:11 (seven years ago) link
Reminds me of that photo shoot Suede did in a public toilet in 1995
― PaulTMA, Sunday, 21 May 2017 12:50 (seven years ago) link
New track:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcFWjCYwBW4
Pretty fun! The B-side is getting WAY more plays on Spotify though.
― DJI, Thursday, 27 January 2022 18:09 (two years ago) link
Good track! Video reminiscent of low budget OK Go.
― theo, Thursday, 27 January 2022 18:15 (two years ago) link
New episode of Song Exploder is about Take Me Out
https://songexploder.net/
― piscesx, Friday, 28 January 2022 05:05 (two years ago) link
We've reached the "Best Of Album" phase of Franz Ferdinand's career today...
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Friday, 11 March 2022 17:52 (two years ago) link
I liked their first and third albums a lot; will listen to the best-of to see what I missed otherwise.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 11 March 2022 17:59 (two years ago) link
Still love that debut, and I remember loving at least half of the second one quite a bit. (Sadly the best song on it, "Eleanor Put Your Boots On," doesn't appear to be on the compilation. It sounds like a great, lost Ray Davies/Kinks track from the late '60s.)
― birdistheword, Friday, 11 March 2022 19:28 (two years ago) link
i played the FF vs Mclaren bootleg last weekend at local DJ thing, and yeah, it still hits the spot.
― mark e, Friday, 11 March 2022 21:04 (two years ago) link
xp I didn't realize it was re-recorded later on for its single release.
Don't like it, prefer the original album version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZAtgIqeY8
― birdistheword, Sunday, 13 March 2022 18:13 (two years ago) link
debut ruled then, rules now, fyiyd
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Wednesday, 23 November 2022 20:32 (one year ago) link
music post