I Waited Three Years for Tonight

"You can listen to it quiet, but it sounds better loud. You can listen to during the daytime, but it sounds better at night time," quoth Alex Kapranos, Franz Ferdinand front man. But Bob the bassist would like to remind you that through the wonders of the interweb, you can buy it day or night, 24/7.

Yesterday, when Franz Ferdinand's new album dropped, I went specifically out of my way to get it, first thing in the morning. I waited three years for this album, and the wait was finally over.

I was simply giddy when I found it on the new releases shelf (but for some odd reason, all of the cases had minor cracks in the same spot on every case. I stood at that shelf picking up different cases of the same CD and inspecting them for damage for about five minutes. The people at the counter must have thought I was crazy). I got home, locked myself in my room and threw it on repeat for the rest of the day. Would've written this up yesterday, but I was still too giddy.

If you're still reading this, then I'm going to assume that you've already heard a little bit about this album. You know that it's much more of a dance oriented record, than a guitar-driven rock record like their last record, You Could Have It So Much Better. You know that it's an album to "fling yourself around your room to as you psyche yourself for a night of hedonism, for the dance-floor, flirtation, for your desolate heart-stop, for losing it and loving losing it, for the chemical surge in your bloodstream. Its for that lonely hour gently rocking yourself waiting for dawn and it all to be even again". Damn that swaggering singer, Kapranos, has a way with words!

And indeed, as soon as you push that little triangular play button, you're going to get pretty psyched. As I'm listening to it in my seat, typing this thing out, I'm psyched and doing a little swivel chair dance to the beat of one of my favourites from the album, Live Alone one of the more tragic tracks on this one. And yet it still manages to get away with a playful lyric about slipping in a casual "man", in a sentence so that a NYC taxi driver would think that "he's alright" and want to have a drink with him.

What She Came For has got the best shout-it-out chorus line, and I can't wait to see that one live. Lucid Dreams has undergone a major transformation since its release a few months ago. It's like a dance remix of the original track. I've yet to grow much attachment to the new version though. Dream Again would be the Tonight equivilent of YCHISMB's Fade Together, or their debut album's 40ft. You know, the quiet brooding track that now seems a necissity in every Franz record. No You Girls and Katherine Kiss Me are like a pair of doppelgangers. In restrospect, they really are the same song. The same song with the same story and interchangeable lyrics, but under very different circumstances. No You Girls is the rockin' life of the party. Katherine Kiss Me would be the spoft-spoken acoustic response to it. They're each good in their own right.

I could go on about every other track that I haven't yet mentioned, but what I think says the most about the band and their new sound is the revamp of Can't Stop the Feeling. This song has been with the Franz for a while now. It was a demo that they released waaaay back in 2003. It was an indie keyboard-guitar collaboration that complimented their first album very well. Comparing that to the new dancey, sleekly produced version is a pretty good metaphor to describe the band's evolutionary process.

Franz Ferdinand - Can't Stop Feeling (2003 Demo) (mp3)
Franz Ferdinand - Can't Stop Feeling (Tonight, album version) (mp3)(Amazon)(iTunes)

[EDIT: Mp3s taken down upon request]

It's also a pretty good metaphor about how I'm going to rate Tonight as a whole. I liked it a whole fuckin' lot. Really! It was a much needed breather from the frenzied YCHISMB sound. It definitely rates higher on my scales than their sophmore, but will it achieve the same affection I hold for their self-titled debut? I mean, that's some serious competition! For now, I'll probably have to say no. Franz Ferdinand's Franz Ferdinand was too much of a masterpiece, and I'm not sure if anything will knock that off my top spot at this point. But there's still time for many more listens.

Go buy the album and decide for yourself already. It's worth the price, and it was definitely worth the three years of waiting.

That's what I've had to say about Tonight. This is what the band had to say about it. Among other things. Good fun to watch if you have the time. Those boys are awful charming.



Seriously, go buy it.