Franz Ferdinand’s fourth studio album Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is out and it’s their best—at least since the band’s 2004 self-titled debut—filled with the sharp guitar jabs and even sharper lyrical hooks that first propelled them to international rock stardom. In honor of Franz Ferdindand’s fondness for alliterating the letter f, here’s four of our favorite Franz moments.
Franz Ferdinand performs “Take Me Out” live on Later . . . with Jools Holland back in 2003.
“Take Me Out” was the track that launched it all. Their second single, it hit number three in the U.K. before rising up the charts across Europe and even the U.S., no easy feat for a rock song, even back in 2004. Of course, within more rarified fashion and music circles it was an even bigger deal, landing on all of the year-end lists of the snobbiest rock blogs and turning Alex Kapranos into a bold-faced name among magazine editors, even landing him a David Sims shot cover of V Magazine (he wore Dior Homme by Hedi Slimane, naturally).
Music video for the song “Michael.”
The new album has more than a few nods to Bowie. But if you wanted to point to Kapranos’s Ziggy Stardust moment, it would be the song “Michael,” an anthem for sexuality-shifting rock stars.
Franz Ferdinand with La Roux at the Shockwaves NME Awards in 2009 performing Blondie’s “Call Me.”
Albums two and three had their moments, but met nowhere near the success of the first. The band kept things interesting though, whether getting on stage with La Roux to play a Blondie song or performing their own version of unexpected new tracks like Grimes’ “Oblivion.” Plus there have been the remixes, like Danish producer **Trentemøller’**s incredible take on 2009’s semi-hit “No You Girls.”
Music video for “Right Action.”
The first single for the new album distills everything we love about Franz Ferdinand into a single song, without feeling like a rehash.
Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is available on iTunes.