Scottish Albums of the Decade #19: Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

It was the mating call of four art school underachievers committed to tape. Having toiled in various no-hope outfits throughout the 90s, Alex, Bob, Nick and Paul pooled their love for Blondie, Russian futurist art, alliteration and Orange Juice, and formed a band named Franz Ferdinand. They dressed sharp on hotel chef wages, practiced in an abandoned warehouse, and had one charge: to make “music for girls to dance to”.

Because the 2004 debut Franz Ferdinand and the companion single, Take Me Out (the best #1-single-that-never-was since Common People), arrived on an Old Testament tidal wave of commercial success and critical acclaim, it's easy to see why the backlash started. It literally split the decade in two, creating a post-Franz universe in which airplay overexposure and constant gigging burned the boys out. But it's only now, five years hence with a clean pair of ears, that we can hear Franz Ferdinand for the white hot classic it truly is. Thomson and Hardy's tightly buttoned rhythm section, Kapranos' sexually frustrated come-ons, and McCarthy's spy movie guitars still sound as fresh as intravenous citrus – and I'll be an assassinated Archduke of Austria if this isn't the most simultaneously original and reverential disco-punk this country has ever produced.