Artist · chart history · #167 in alternative artist polls · #425 in indie & aaa artist polls
Franz Ferdinand
Band Glasgow United Kingdom Formed 2001 Scottish rock band
Franz Ferdinand formed in 2001 in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Franz Ferdinand has 238 chart appearances on 167 radio countdowns from 60 stations on RockLists, spanning 2004–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Take Me Out”, which appears on 82 lists and was voted number one twice. In total the artist has topped 2 countdowns. The station that charted Franz Ferdinand most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 38 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2004.
Franz Ferdinand came out of Glasgow with a sharp haircut of a sound: angular guitars, a disco kick drum and a singer who sounded like he was winking at you across a crowded party. Alex Kapranos sang and played guitar and keyboards, Nick McCarthy handled more guitar, keys and vocals, Bob Hardy played bass, and Paul Thomson drummed and chipped in on percussion and backing vocals. Critics filed them under the post-punk revival, but the point was simpler: this was guitar music built to make people dance.
Their first single, "Darts of Pleasure", just missed the UK top 40, but "Take Me Out" was the breakthrough, built on a riff so tight you could bounce a coin off it. It went to number three in the UK, charted around the world and became their signature. The self-titled debut album, released on Domino in 2004, took the Mercury Prize, and "This Fire" and "The Dark of the Matinee" showed they had more than one trick. In 2005 they won Brit Awards for British Group and British Rock Act.
You Could Have It So Much Better arrived in 2005 with Rich Costey producing, louder and more frantic, and "Do You Want To" was as cheeky and bouncy as anything they'd done, with "The Fallen" and "Walk Away" rounding it out. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, released in January 2009, leaned further toward the dance floor, with "Ulysses" and "No You Girls" throbbing where the old songs jabbed, and a remix album called Blood followed in July. Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action came along in August 2013 with "Right Action" and "Love Illumination".
The next chapter got strange in the best way: a one-off supergroup with Sparks called FFS, and an album of the same name in June 2015. McCarthy left in 2016, and Julian Corrie and Dino Bardot joined the following year in time for Always Ascending in February 2018. Thomson departed in 2021, with Audrey Tait taking the drum stool, and The Human Fear arrived in January 2025. The lineup has shifted, but the band still sounds like a sharp suit in a sweaty club.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Franz Ferdinand on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Take Me Out | 82 | #1 | 2 | 2004 | |
| 2 | Do You Want To | 34 | #10 | – | 2005 | |
| 3 | No You Girls | 26 | #4 | – | 2009 | |
| 4 | This Fire | 30 | #21 | – | 2004 | |
| 5 | The Fallen | 14 | #15 | – | 2005 | |
| 6 | Ulysses | 16 | #6 | – | 2009 | |
| 7 | Right Action | 11 | #17 | – | 2013 | |
| 8 | Audacious | 5 | #27 | – | 2024 | |
| 9 | Lucid Dreams | 3 | #31 | – | 2008 | |
| 10 | Darts of Pleasure | 2 | #79 | – | 2005 | |
| 11 | Hooked | 1 | #13 | – | 2025 | |
| 12 | Night Or Day | 3 | #50 | – | 2025 | |
| 13 | The Dark of the Matinee | 1 | #50 | – | 2004 | |
| 14 | Sound And Vision | 1 | #472 | – | – | |
| 15 | Walk Away | 2 | #29 | – | 2005 | |
| 16 | What She Came For | 1 | #78 | – | 2009 | |
| 17 | Love Illumination | 1 | #36 | – | 2013 | |
| 18 | Always Ascending | 1 | #103 | – | 2017 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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