Franz Ferdinand

Jeez, you think?! It's as straight a McCartney homage as you can possibly imagine (down to the Live and Let Die-like break).

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.

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.

*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.

xp

-- djdee2005 (esli...), May 6th, 2004.

Me OTM.

What about Annie?

Not quite as ferocious as Swell Maps, of course.

not quite good as Swell Maps, I should add :)

Maybe if you're talking about overall aesthetic vision. But as far as songcraftmanship and playing abilities go, they ARE as good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIR5vBiC3ig

awesomely NSFW

looks who's back
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAMSo-UUQAAWNFr.jpg:large

paul thomson on the verge of going full pauline mccafferty there

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

think paul is getting a bit too close to tim burgess hair there tbh

Kapranos looks like Dave Mustaine. That is one weird photo.

Now way am I buying that Kapranos is only 27 years old

Born: March 20, 1972 (age 45)

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.

paul thomson on the verge of going full pauline mccafferty there

internet win of 2017.

they're playing northampton (ma) in two weeks and i really want to go

lol uh is their new guitarist my buddy donald?? he did not tell me about this development

Reminds me of that photo shoot Suede did in a public toilet in 1995

New track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcFWjCYwBW4

Pretty fun! The B-side is getting WAY more plays on Spotify though.

Good track! Video reminiscent of low budget OK Go.

New episode of Song Exploder is about Take Me Out

https://songexploder.net/

We've reached the "Best Of Album" phase of Franz Ferdinand's career today...

I liked their first and third albums a lot; will listen to the best-of to see what I missed otherwise.

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.)

i played the FF vs Mclaren bootleg last weekend at local DJ thing, and yeah, it still hits the spot.

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

debut ruled then, rules now, fyiyd

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