When Franz Ferdinand first emerged on the scene with this album back in 2004, I don't think anybody was prepared for them. Propelled by the album's second single, the stupidly-memorable Take Me Out (which charted at 3 in the UK charts), the album itself got to number 3 in the album charts.
But it didn't stop at Take Me Out. Other highlights include 'Tell Her Tonight', a song sung by guitarist Nick McCarthy that is unbelievably catchy. Then there's 'The Dark Of The Matinee', one of the best indie-pop songs in recent years. There's also the first single, 'Darts Of Pleasure', with it's insanely brilliant chant of "Ich heiße Super Fantastisch" ("My name is Super Fantastic"). And then there's, in my opinion, the album's masterpiece, 'Michael', a post-punk song of epic proportions about homosexuality. If you don't want to get up and dance to this song, there is something wrong with you.
All in all, this is one of the best debut albums from the UK in a long long time.