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Franz Ferdinand

When Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand first broke through in 2004, they were the band of many indie-rockers' dreams: Witty, arty and photogenic, full of clever arrangements and tasty hooks, they were a proud throwback to the heyday of Roxy Music and Ziggy-era Bowie. Franz Ferdinand was formed out of a few lesser-known Scottish pop outfits including Yummy Fur, which featured singer Alex Kapranos and guitarist Paul Thompson. Bassist Paul Hardy and drummer Nicholas McCarthy completed the original quartet, which built a UK buzz with its first EP Darts of Pleasure. The band then went to Sweden to make its first album with producer Tore Johansson of Cardigans fame. Released in January 2004, the first single "Take Me Out" was an immediate chart success in the UK. In the US, it made Franz Ferdinand one of the last bands to have its career broken by MTV. The band spent much of 2004-05 racking up awards, including the Mercury Music Prize, an Ivor Novello Award and three Grammy nominations, they also performed at the 2006 Grammys in a medley that included a raft of hitmakers. Further albums offered slight tweaks on the formula: 2005's You Could Have It So Much Better, with more whomping production, in-your-face hooks and obvious bravado, was essentially the debut on steroids (or Ecstasy). 2009's Tonight: Franz Ferdinand chilled things out a bit, with dub and Motown influences and even an acoustic song for the finale. (This was accompanied by Franz Ferdinand's most out-there release, the full-length dub album Blood). 2013'sRight Thoughts Right Words Right Action returned to the good-natured party vibe of the debut. Each album produced at least one substantial hit-- respectively, "Do You Want To," "No You Girls" and "Right Action." Ironically, the latter tune was one of Franz Ferdinand's bigger U.S. hits, while missing the charts in the U.K. During 2015 the band took a side-trip and merged with with one of their role models-the long-running, eternally quirky, brotherly duo Sparks. Dubbing their collaboration FFS, they released an album (including a song cheekily titled "Collaborations Don't Work") and toured together, playing the full album plus the greatest hits of both subgroups. As the band started work on a new album in 2016, the band had its first personnel change with Nick McCarthy leaving and the others carrying on as a trio. The first track to appear from these sessions was "Demagogue," which was part on an online project (30 Days, 30 Songs) of notable bands writing anti-Donald Trump pop songs.