Franz Ferdinand
2004
The band said they wanted to make records girls could dance to, and rehearsed in a derelict Glasgow warehouse they had taken over.
★ 2.3
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Modern Vampires of the City
2013
Rostam Batmanglij pitched the vocals up and down until they sound like other people, which is why the record keeps slipping out of focus.
★ 3.1
Is This It
2001
Singer Julian Casablancas sang through a guitar amplifier to get that flattened, distant voice, and the whole thing was recorded in a basement.
★ 3.8
Plans
2005
I Will Follow You into the Dark was recorded live in a hallway with one microphone, which is why you can hear the room.
★ 3.9
Hospice
2009
A song cycle set in a hospice ward, about a worker and a dying patient, that most listeners take as being about something else entirely.
★ 3.9
Z
2005
Jim James recorded the earlier albums in a grain silo on his grandfather's farm for the echo. This is the first made in a real studio.
★ 4.2
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2009
The band come from Versailles and had spent ten years making records almost nobody outside France bought before this one arrived.
★ 4.2
The Woods
2005
Sleater-Kinney have no bass player, only two guitars and drums, and here producer Dave Fridmann pushed the levels until everything distorts.
★ 4.3
The Crane Wife
2006
The title song is in three parts, and they are scattered across the record out of order. The story is a Japanese folk tale.
★ 4.3
Shields
2012
They threw away a year's work and began again. All four of them write, which is why nothing quite resolves the way you expect.
★ 4.3
Reflektor
2013
They recorded part of it in Jamaica with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem producing, and David Bowie sings on the title track.
★ 4.3
Kill the Moonlight
2002
Spoon leave most of the space empty, so a tambourine or a single piano note does the work a guitar solo usually would.
★ 4.4
Funeral
2004
Three of the band lost close relatives while they were making it, which is where the title came from. Everything is played as though shouted.
★ 4.4
Fever to Tell
2003
There is no bass player, just Nick Zinner's guitar and Brian Chase's drums under Karen O's yelping. Maps was written about missing someone.
★ 4.4
Chutes Too Narrow
2003
James Mercer, who essentially is the Shins, recorded most of it in his own basement. A film later put an earlier song in front of everybody.
★ 4.5
You're Living All Over Me
1987
J Mascis played much of the drumming as well as the guitar, and played loud enough that the rest of the band wore earplugs.
★ 4.8
XO
1998
Smith had just played the Academy Awards in a white suit, in front of an audience that had no idea who he was.
★ 4.8
White Blood Cells
2001
Recorded in Memphis in about three days. Michel Gondry animated the video for Fell in Love with a Girl entirely out of Lego bricks.
★ 4.8
Transatlanticism
2003
One line repeats for eight minutes on the title track, with an instrument added at a time until the whole band is playing at once.
★ 4.8
Neon Bible
2007
They bought a church in Quebec and recorded in it, using the pipe organ, a military choir and a Hungarian orchestra.
★ 5.0