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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/12aca9482902e2b449bc76903b5c0514.PNG]]
2->''I say, "Don't you know?"\
3You say, "You don't know?"\
4I say...\
5"Take me out!"''
6-->-- "Take Me Out"
7
8''Franz Ferdinand'' is the [[SelfTitledAlbum eponymous debut album]] of the Scottish AlternativeIndie band Music/FranzFerdinand. Released in 2004, it became extremely popular, especially since its lead single, "Darts of Pleasure", received recognition a year before the album's release. The band's PostPunk concerns meshed well with its [[GlamRock art rock]] and DancePunk influences on this album, creating a new style that straddled mainstream rock and dance-pop.
9
10Along with debuting at #3 on the UK Album Charts, it garnered further attention even in the US and Australia because its songs were hip enough to be played at clubs. Subsequent singles such as "The Dark of the Matinée", "Michael", and "Take Me Out" (which won an Creator/{{MTV}} Video Music Award for its avant-garde video), all placed on the UK singles chart. Even ''Magazine/RollingStone'', normally averse to the {{Britpop}} scene, took a shine to the album, and gave positive reviews to the album's singles in retrospective best-of lists.
11
12----
13!!Tracklist:
14
15# "Jacqueline" (3:49)
16# "Tell Her Tonight" (2:17)
17# "Take Me Out" (3:57)
18# "The Dark of the Matinée" (4:03)
19# "Auf Achse" (4:19)
20# "Cheating on You" (2:36)
21# "This Fire" (4:14)
22# "Darts of Pleasure" (2:59)
23# "Michael" (3:21)
24# "Come on Home" (3:46)
25# "40'" (3:24)
26
27----
28!! Principal Members:
29* Alex Kapranos – lead guitar, lead vocals
30* Nick [=McCarthy=] – rhythm guitar, vocals, keyboards
31* Bob Hardy – bass guitar
32* Paul Thomson – drums, percussion, backing vocals
33
34----
35!!"Tropes of Pleasure":
36
37* ArtDeco: The videos for "This Fire" and "Take Me Out" were heavily inspired by Soviet propaganda and pop art of the earlier 20th century.
38* {{Bowdlerization}}: An alternate version of "Michael" was recorded a few months prior to the album's release, where it was instead about a boy and a girl fighting over the titular character. The band eventually scrapped it and decided against recording a radio-friendly version of the song.
39* BrokenBird: It's implied that the girl in "Auf Achse" was used by the man Alex addresses in the song.
40* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The video for "Matinée", which shows the band members singing in a drab classroom while they're being taught how to perform music. Later, when they're performing as famous artists, the video cuts to a bleak white area, showing that it's really LonelyAtTheTop.
41* DerangedAnimation: The video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijk4j-r7qPA "Take Me Out"]] is a surreal melange of clockworks, body parts, old-school sketches and abstract diagrams.
42* DualMeaningChorus: "Take Me Out", while ostensibly about a guy trying to pick up a girl in a bar, could subtly be about the real Franz Ferdinand's assassination. There are various pistol-related references in the song, such as "cross hair" and "shots". Some interpretations of the song also include the fact that Ferdinand could be trying to defend his honor or his wife in the context of the song.
43* EvilIsBurningHot: Invoked by "This Fire", which is about the shallowness or the viscosity of lust or passion.
44--> ''Eyes, burning a way through me\
45Overwhelm, destroying so sweetly\
46Now, there is a fire within me\
47A fire that burns''
48* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Invoked in "40'":
49--> ''As I glance once upon the foam\
5040' beneath my feet\
51The coldest calm falls\
52Through the molten veins\
53Cooling all the blood to slush\
54That congeals around the again\
55Oh... 40 feet remain''
56* FauxYay: "Michael" pretty much ''defines'' this trope. The band has repeatedly had to affirm their sexuality because of the bluntly male-homoerotic lyrics featured on the song.
57* GratuitousGerman:
58** "Auf Achse", which means "on the road".
59** At the end of "Darts of Pleasure", the band sings:
60--> ''Ich heiße Superphantastisch!\
61Ich trinke Schampus mit Lachsfisch!\
62Ich heiße Su-per-phan-tas-tisch!''
63** Which means:
64--> ''[[WordSaladLyrics My name is Super Fantastic!\
65I drink champagne with salmon fish!\
66My name is Su-per-phan-tas-tic!]]''
67* InTheStyleOf: "Michael" is done very much in the style of Morrissey of Music/TheSmiths, complete with the overt homoerotic lyrics and dancing.
68* LimitedLyricsSong: "Take Me Out" repeats the same two verses (with slight modifications) for over three minutes.
69* LiteraryAllusionTitle: "40'" (Forty feet) could be a reference to Creator/JamesJoyce's ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}''. The opening scene of the book takes place at Forty Foot, a promontory (i.e. a cliff) in Ireland which leads to a forty foot drop over the Dublin bay.
70* LongDistanceRelationship[=/=]LoveWillLeadYouBack: "Come On Home":
71--> ''I flirt with any flighty thing that falls my way\
72But how I needed you\
73When I needed you\
74Let's not forget we are so strong, so bloody strong\
75So come on home''
76* LyricSwap: On live performances of "Michael", Alex sometimes swaps the lyric, "''Come and dance with me''" with "''Come all over me''" live. Also "''Stubble on my sticky lips''" with "''Stubble on my sticky hips''".
77* MeetCute: "Matinée":
78--> ''I time every journey to bump into you, accidentally\
79I charm you and tell you of the boys I hate''
80* MinimalisticCoverArt: A completely black cover with the album name on the front. This was intentional; the band wanted to simply differentiate their albums by color scheme, though this idea fell apart pretty quickly.
81* MoneySong: "Jacqueline", which goes on about working on holiday, when the narrator (and probably his girlfriend) need money. They mostly spend the rest of their time having fun, probably.
82* ObsessionSong: "Michael". Considering that the song was inspired by two straight friends of the band's dancing together drunkenly for giggles, it takes this trope up to eleven.
83* OneManSong: "Michael".
84* OneWomanSong: "Jacqueline".
85* RearrangeTheSong: The single version of "Matinée" is slightly different from the original version. Remastered versions of the album include the single version instead of the original.
86** The single (and music video) version of "This Fire" is a ''much'' quicker tempo than the album version.
87* SelfTitledAlbum: The band actually wanted ''all'' of their albums to be this, identified only by their color scheme. They had to scrap the idea after this album, since it was too confusing to music executives.
88* SillyLoveSongs: "Tell Her Tonight", a silly song about encouraging a guy to confess to his crush.
89* SongStyleShift:
90** "Jacqueline" begins softly with an acoustic guitar, before moving into a quicker, faster chord progression.
91** "Take Me Out" starts out as a pop song before moving into a harder rock beat.
92* StockSoundEffects: "Michael" samples the line "''She's worried about you, call your mother''" from about 1:35 to 1:39, played backward. WordOfGod says that it was just thrown in as a "positive message" in an otherwise homoerotic track.
93%%* SurrealMusicVideo: "Take Me Out" has various kitschy, pop art animations throughout the video.
94* WhileRomeBurns: "This Fire", about a guy singing as a city figuratively burns.

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