I don’t think myself or anyone else could have predicted that screaming “They call me superfantastic!” in German at the end of a rock song would lead to critical and commercial success. But then Franz Ferdinand came along.
The band (named after the Austrian archduke whose assassination started World War I) hails from Glasgow, Scotland, and their sound is something like The Strokes with a dash of the Depeche Mode, chock full of sardonic lyrics and cheap synthesizers.
Too often, listening to albums for the first time is a daunting experience. I always have to wade through so many over-produced tracks full of self-importance and misplaced righteousness that whatever good songs there actually are on an album are hardly worth the wait.
That is why I was so impressed with Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled debut LP. I popped it in my CD player after only hearing a couple of the band’s songs, but as I listened to it, I couldn’t help but thinking how every song on the album could be a single. Every track has the definitive mark of a pop song: not more than four and half minutes long, a simple, catchy chorus and an easy-to-follow structure.
Still, this music is anything but cookie-cutter rock. On “Take Me Out”, for instance, a fast-paced guitar-driven intro is slowed down expertly before leading into the rest of the song. “Jacqueline”, which leads the album, starts with a slow, soulful acoustic intro before morphing into a bass-induced rock frenzy celebration of hedonism and free-spirited lust for life. And “Darts of Pleasure” cannot be left out, with its anthemic coda of “Ich heisse Superfantastisch/Ich trinke Schampus und Lachsfisch” (Translated: “They call me superfantastic/I drink champagne and salmon!”).
Singer and guitarist Alex Kapranos is undoubtedly the band’s leader, and it is the superb drumming of Paul Thomson and Bob Hardy’s bass playing that drive the band’s engine on a wild, relentless ramble all the way to being crowned the “Next Big Thing” by the hype-wild British music press. This time, though, the hype is well worth it.
In 2001, Kapranos and Hardy were making music together when they met guitarist Nick McCarthy, whose house they began rehearsing at. After bringing Thomson into the band, they started playing at an abandoned warehouse and throwing huge parties there, which drew the ire of the Glasgow police. Eventually they moved out of the warehouse into a Victorian era courthouse and began recording music for an EP, and shortly thereafter were signed by Domino, a U.K. indie record label. After releasing their “Darts of Pleasure” EP in 2003 to critical acclaim, their highly anticipated self-titled debut album was released last month.
Riding on the success of their album, the band has reportedly been signed by Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony, to a $1 million-plus licensing deal which will see Sony and Domino team up to sell the band stateside.
Perhaps what is so appealing about Franz Ferdinand is the fact that they so easily combine banality, sarcasm, seriousness, wit and angst in their music. It is within this tempest of changing feelings that most people live their everyday lives, and it’s not too often an album or a band comes along that can exemplify it so well in their music.
Ferdinand is currently touring the United Kingdom and Europe, but will go on the road in the U.S. in early June, playing shows in Boston on June 16 and New York on June 17 and 18.
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