Franz Ferdinand is a rocking young band out of Glasgow, Scotland. Composed of Robert Hardy, Alexander Kapranos, Nicholas McCarthy, and Paul Thomson, the band got together after meeting at Glasgow College of Art to play "music that girls could dance to." The name is part of their effort to erase the archduke from the annals of history.
In 2004, their self-titled album was released to critical and commercial success and was touted by music critics as the first great album of the year. They've been compared to everyone from Britpop favorites Blur and Suede to post-punk heroes Interpol and The Rapture, but their fans surely agree that theirs is music that girls, and pretty much everyone else, could certainly dance to.
The band's lyrics mostly focus on inter-personal relationships, and most of the sadness and seriousness of the subjects they tackle is masked by their witty repartee. Add to that their melodies that are harder to shake than VD, and you've got one of the most infectious rock albums of the past few years.
This is best demonstrated by the single Take Me Out, which starts out as a pretty standard, if not unremarkable, pop-rock song in the mold of Coldplay or The Strokes, before morphing, with a guitar riff, into a funk number about a minute into the song.
Track List
1. Jacqueline
2. Tell Her Tonight
3. Take Me Out
4. The Dark Of The Matinee
5. Auf Achse
6. Cheating On You
7. This Fire
8. Darts Of Pleasure
9. Michael
10. Come On Home
11. 40 Ft
Free samples of their music can be downloaded at http://www.dominorecordco.com/artist.php?artist=171 | 
