Gimme a damn break. Jesus.

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from NME.com

FRANZ FERDINAND have given NME.COM the exclusive comeback interview for their second record, revealing the inside story of making the follow-up to one of the most successful British debut albums in years.

The second record, due in September, will not have a title and will only be recognisable from the band’s debut by a change in colour scheme. Instead of dark brown, orange and cream, the second album will have a black, red and pale green cover.

Singer Alex Kapranos explained: “The whole point is that the album doesn’t have a title. We decided quite a while ago that we didn’t want to give any of the albums titles, they were just going to be called ‘Franz Ferdinand’.”

He added: “The albums are going to be identified by their colour schemes rather than a title. The contrast of different colours creates a different mood. We experimented with different combinations of colours and this one stuck. At one level they looked good together, and they capture the mood of this record quite well.”

The album has been recorded in a studio located Alex Kapranos’ home in rural Scotland, and was mixed at Avatar Studios in New York. The band are now finalising the tracklisting, and are choosing from 16 songs.

Songs played live like ‘Your Diary’ and ‘I’m Your Villain’ are competing for space against self-proclaimed “knockout punches” Franz have been saving like ‘Turn It On’ and ‘Do You Want To?’ – both potential comeback singles.

Other tracks expected to appear on the album include ’Outsiders’, ‘Walk Away’, ‘Eleanor, Put Your Boots Back On’, ‘You Could Have It So Much Better’, ‘What You Meant’, ‘Well, That Was Easy’ and ‘Evil And A Heathen’.

For the full interview with Franz Ferdinand about their new record, an exclusive look into the band’s studio and Kapranos talking about his favourite tracks from the LP, get this week’s NME - out nationwide today (June 29).

Somebody give them Peter Gabriel's phone number; maybe he can talk them out of it.

Maybe he could at least talk them into being creative about it. If you're going to insist on going the self-titled route, have the decency to make a statement with your artwork.

Are these guys art-school dropouts, by chance?

I'm glad this won't polarize the board any further.

Comeback?

The answer is none...none more black.

Hopefully this is something they will grow out of by the time of "Zofo".

So we are to refer to the first album as...what, 'the first album'? The 'dark brown, orange & cream album'? 'cause "brown" just ain't gonna cut it with the scat folks. It just ain't shitty enough.

That's meant to be a compliment -- I liked the album.

I mean, what if they do a dark brown, orange, and off-white album, how are we supposed to refer to that one?

Sometimes I refer to Peter Gabriel's first solo album as "the one with 'Solsbury Hill' on it", his third as "the one with 'Games Without Frontiers' on it", and the second one as "that other one...didn't really have any big hits off of it".

But usually, it just takes too long to say. I mean, can you imagine calling it, "that one with 'Jacqueline', 'Take Me Out', 'The Dark of the Matinee', 'This Fire', and 'Michael' on it"?

yeah WTF?

That album colour thing sounds WAY too pretentious. Is it that hard to give them a name? Or even come up with new artwork?

Well, I'd give even money the songs will sound the same, anyway, so why go to all the trouble?

You guys are bored, aren't you?

I don't think it sounds pretentious per se. Because one of the things I do think about when listening to an album is the color of the cover (Nevermind = Blue) It's really just the lack of an album title that annoys me. I hate referring to albums only by a color. Give me a number at least.

Franz Ferdinand has Weezer envy. How stupid is that?

Who remembers album titles anyway? I was refer to albums as "the third one" or "the last one" or whatever.

And it's still way better than calling a song "Untitled" which loads of bands have done - including crappy, unsuccessful bands it's still "OK" to like.

I still like the first one a lot, though my daughter listens to it a lot more than I do.

Sounds more to me like they graduated with honors...a dropout woulda probably come up with something cool & interesting.

I do to, but this one's gonna have pale green in the cover. I mean, do you expect me to listen to that?

Of course not. Now a mint color would be a whole other story.

She's got a dance routinue she does to "Take Me Out," "her almost absolute favorite song." Thankfully she hasn't asked me to explain "Michael" or "Dark Of The Matinee" yet.

If they are just going to keep them self-titled, then I think that they should just rename the band after each album, to a new assassinated statesman.

Franz Ferdinand 2004
Anwar Sadat 2006
Ngo Dinh Diem 2007
Almost Gerald Ford, Twice 2009

You are so Lafawnda.

Franz Ferdinand Renames New Album

By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y. ( billboard.com )

After initially opting to self-title its second album, Franz Ferdinand has now opted to call the set "You Could Have It So Much Better ... With Franz Ferdinand." The album will still be released as planned Oct. 3 internationally and the next day in North America via Domino/Epic. First single "Do You Want To?" will precede the album on Sept. 19.

The original plan was to have only the band's name printed on the new album cover, and to distinguish it from its similarly self-titled predecessor with a different color scheme.

"There's so many albums I have that I don't refer to by their real titles," frontman Alex Kapranos told Billboard.com recently. "The second Specials album is called 'More Specials,' but I always just call it 'the second Specials album.' I'm also quite interested to see what will happen, because I know people will choose their own name for it. It's a little bit of an experiment."

Franz Ferdinand is gearing up for a handful of U.K. festival dates later this month, beginning Aug. 20-21 at the V Festival. A North American tour will begin Sept. 20 in Chicago.

Sellouts!

Oh, wait...

That is a terrible album title. Doing a Peter Gabriel would've been much better, but not very original.

Goddamn thats funny.

That's horrible. They should have just stuck with the color scheme change if they couldn't come up with anything better than that. I sure hope that the songs are better than that title.