Day 0953 - Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand “Franz Ferdinand” (2004) – got it

I remember being into these guys from the off.  I saw their video for “Take Me Out” with its cool visuals.  The song seemed to have an interesting melody, then it suddenly started to decelerate (which I thought was awesome) and suddenly a danceable funky groove kicked off and I was totally hooked.

A danceable groove is something that ranked high on FF’s to-do list as they stated one of their goals was to “make music for girls to dance to”.   The music owes a heavy debt to Talking Heads’ mid-era material with its nerdy white-boy funk groove (especially second track “Tell Her Tonight”).  That mix of disco beats, and funky guitar harks back to a similar style popular in the 80s/late 70s and would soon become widely popular with artists such as Bloc Party and Gossip.

The band recorded with producer Tore Johansson, who had helmed the Cardigan’s brilliant “First Band on the Moon” (see day 832) which featured a similar catchy mix of dance beats and funky guitar.

The album is nice and concise coming in under the 40-minute mark.  There are bursts of punky energy on songs like “Darts of Pleasure” and “This Fire”.  “The Dark of the Matinée” (a personal favourite of mine) has almost a theatricality to it that always brings to mind early Split Enz.

Day 0901 - The Virgin Suicides (Soundtrack)

Air “The Virgin Suicides (Soundtrack)” (2000) – got it

Air’s debut album “Moon Safari” (entry 874) had been chilling people out for a year or two, and then the French duo reappeared scoring Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut ‘Virgin Suicides’, the film adaptation of Jeffery Eugenides’ novel.

The film is full of beauty and bleakness, life and death.  The music offsets this with a quality that is dreamy, yet with an underlying darkness.  A vibe not unlike Angelo Badalementi’s work for David Lynch on Twin Peaks.

The opening track "Playground Love" is a dreamy electro indie-pop track, but much of the rest of the album is instrumental with a few melodic themes repeated on different tracks like one of Marvin Gaye's song-suite albums.   

There's a vaguely trippy 70s-era Pink Floydian vibe to some of the music, particularly closing track "Suicide Underground" which also features narration from the film, linking the score back to its source.

Day 0546 - Born in the USA

Bruce Springsteen "Born in the USA" (1984) - got it

Following the moody and downbeat "Nebraska", the record company were putting pressure on Bruce to produce something a bit more commercial.   An expectation that he lashed out at lyrically in "Dancing in the Dark" but at the same time, one that he ended up meeting in crafting one of the biggest hits of his career.

Even as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was dropping off the number 1 spot in the charts, Bruce took over that position for the next stretch of time.  As both artists were signed to CBS subsidiaries, that label must have been popping champagne... and probably some cocaine, being the 80s and all.  Like that other album, this one is almost entirely populated with hit singles, making it seem as much a greatest hits as stand-alone album.

"Dancing in the Dark" wasn't the only song with hidden undertones.  The title track seems like a cry of patriotism, but was actually a criticism of the Vietnam war and how America had gone on to treat veterans of that conflict.

This album is a monster.  I was not a rabid Springsteen fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy every song on this album, including the few songs that haven't been thrashed on the radio!  Ended up picking up copies of this album and Nebraska as a result of doing this list.

Day 0484 - Architecture and Morality

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark "Architecture and Morality" (1981)

 
OMitD are one of those bands where I had heard their name plenty of times but wasn't really familiar with them musically.  Something about them (maybe as simple as liking their album artwork or liking their name) made me really keen to check them out.

The actual result fits in the "it's alright, but I wouldn't rush to listen to it again" category.  An album of synth-pop that the book perhaps overhyped with its various Beatles comparisons: they're from Liverpool and deliver their mix of pop and experimentalism in digestible 3 1/2 minute chunks.

I listened through a couple of times and none of the music particularly stayed with me.  There were parts where I enjoyed a melody here or a synth-line there, but largely it passed me by without too much fanfare. 

Regardless, I would be willing to hear more from this band.