Franz Ferdinand and the weird time/location/general associations writeup
Intro: I have very vivid time period specific associations with a lot of different things,
ie. there are certain objects I cannot possess or need to possess in my ownership because it will remind me of xyz, such as sketchbooks associated purely by the time period I curated them.
ie.2 i cannot stand the year or number 2022. I will actively avoid things made in 2022 or labelled as such
About time period specifics, music plays a huge role in my everyday life, and has for more than a decade, Franz was a fixation I've held since early 2020 despite knowing their discography from earlier (2012 to be exact), so effectively this is me exploring the time periods I was exposed to and actively listening to their music. + my subsequent feelings or whatever was going on at the time
Also note there's an evident bias towards /my/ favourite album(s) but im only really just describing stuff i can very obviously tie events and things to in words, so to say this doesnt go over everything would be an understatement.
Take Me Out - First song i ever heard by them in 2012 because. Le radio friendly, 4th grade. I think of a now defunct MMO i used to play because I wanted my user name to be Franz Ferdinand bc of that song but it was taken lol
Evil Eye - 2013, but i got really, really into this song in summer of 2019. It was animated by someone i followed at the time who deleted their channel, otherwise I'd link it here. I was travelling between Toronto → Ottawa → Montreal during the period i had it on loop, so i mostly think of like, probably the best summer I had in years before shit Hit The Fan The Next Year Lol
Bullet - so like a few years previously, I had an extremely turbulent friendship and falling out with two classmates i knew from grades 5-7, since I moved across the country and communication was done solely over text which I feel didn't help the miscommunication. I was SO fucking jealous and annoyed over it still, sitting in the car during a roadtrip in the summer of 2019, primarily bc of other stressors from the previous summers (being moved around between countries 2-3 times in the span of less than a year + other falling outs). 15 year old me thought it was that srs but didnt know how actually horrid shit would get, like 4 years from them so idk id let him have that.
The Franz cover of Grimes' Oblivion - i downloaded it using an mp3 site and it was unevenly balanced between the L + R input on my headphones. I was really upset over some other unspecified irl bullshit that occured at a place I volunteered at during the end of summer 2019. Idk what else, I didnt even listen to grimes prior and i found it because someone animated the original Oblivion song and by chance i found out Franz covered it. I did briefly make an animatic in 2021 with it but its sort of a dark backstory thats too heavy for me to write here so i wont.
Always Ascending + Lois Lane + Huck and Jim - im not wholly crazy about AA as an album but these were my favs from there late 2019. For some reason I associate Always Ascending with Gregory Horror Show because it was the theme song of one of my OCs for that game and around halloween I made a costume head of it.
Fresh Strawberries - I think this marks me going from age 15 to 16 and not getting any less agitated and pissed over past and current conflict. Boy you cannot change the past!
(Generally with RTRWRA i usually think of me being between grade 10 and 11. )
Lucid Dreams + Twilight Omens - played this superrrr loud in my bedroom on new year's eve 2019. I was gonna animate it as a sendoff for that year but got too frustrated . Fun song
Ulysses - oh shit it's January 2020 . i think around this time I got into the twitter side of FF and the only users i remember are @/dear-space-cadet, m**** c****, there was some guy who was a furry and it pissed me off bc other FF fanbase people made fun of them
Right Thoughts - Jan 2020 I absolutely romanticized moving back to /Province where i reside now/ and whether i regret that or not um idk. Me from right now; Im sort of chilling now . Also I wanted to animate this sooooo bad with a fancy dance number. I envisioned kind of being at peace and getting coffee with a friend over in /Province i reside now/
Auf Achse - Feb 2020, i'm 16 and everything fucking sucks
Shopping for Blood - Became the theme song of one of my OCs i had bought at the time, who was a cannibal or something, idr the lore very well. This was my username on another site in 2024, ironically.
Michael - I tried to listen to this in the car running errands with my parents and i got wayyyy too flustered and switched the track. I was writing a really intense romance between two of my OCs at the time which is why. Did not help
Live Alone - had a fight over text with someone i went to HS with when i lived in washington DC very briefly a few years prior. Shit got serious (it really wasn't. I was just very mean and agitated)
Brief Encounters - Nov 2020 i started an animated video for this which I actually completed. It was used for my college portfolio. It sort of feels like the old neighbourhood i used to live in with all the cul de sacs and it being illuminated only slightly at night. Also I think it's only because I was binge playing it a lot at the time i looped this song constantly, i think of Persona 4 Golden and also my old gaming laptop and fucking being on Zoom 6 hours a day for online class, I was in grade 12, i turned 17 in September 2020.
Um Theres gonna be a huge jump between years because i became fixated on other stuff and tbh i really lost a lot of my own memory around 2021-2023 because of how shit it was. I dont have anything to write about that. I graduated in June 2021 and i was not happy, is all i'll say
Walk Away - April 2024, 20 years old, i was easing out of the spring semester at college and I was like, oh i'll revisit this album i really liked in 2020. Idk what even freaking happened but a few months back i stopped talking to someone and i was like yeah. This song encapsulates that. And then i got ousted of my only and last friendgroup and i was like FUCK the lyrics are so me now. Um i can't really listen to the song anymore because it just makes me sad to think about! But in lighter notes they played this live when i went to the concert March of this year and it was such a weirdly affirming experience, maybe i'll reprogram myself and associate it with that over losing friends now.
Ik theres like a very evident lean towards certain albums + like i didnt. Even touch base with like human fear for exa,ple. Or like most of my associations arent present time bc. Idk thats how my mind operates.
bc i was just not even in the right headspace to consistently listen to human fear and ive like forced certain memories out of my brain, to clarify this isnt an extensive list of every Franz song ive listened to. Ive probably gone through their entire discography atleast once, i have my like specific favourites and stuff and its probably evident by this list lol
Walk away became the most listened song of mine when i got ousted by a friendgroup last year.. surprisingly i associate this more with my OC than his namesake song (Ulysses / Michael/Mikael)
The song makes me feel so weird i cant really listen to it properly now. Like its really catchy and not bad by any means but bruh
Ive had an animatic in my head about Ulysses for like a year that of the first hook of the song.. its so vivid to me but its hard to describe in words, i might just have to make it some time
Tbh i might do a writeup of all of my associations with certain franz songs since ive listened to them since 4th grade or so . I tend to create associations of timeframes i was introduced to stuff so like i think it would be cool and something i can post to this blog LOL
I havent posted in a while and in my apple music library everything is still orange
in the meantime ive completed his new ref. Ive had this character for almost 2 years now and brought a cut out of him to the franz gig i attended back in march.
Damn ive really redrawn his ref an annoying amount of times wtf
im listening to the you could have it remaster rn and i guess yeah its slightly better sonically but, like. Was it really just this and turning every album orange (YKHISMB was like. Red was it not).
I dont want to sound comparative bc it's different bands, but im just thinking. oM's sunlandic twins 20th anniversary had not only the 2025 remaster but so many unreleased tracks + patreon exclusives. Like ik id love to hear demos from franz but nah we got a hueshift
I just GASPED… does the modern Franzdom even know that Alvy the dog was a real dog? he was Bob’s and his partner’s dog through the Always Ascending era!
the partner got Alvy in the breakup 💔 but he was EVERYWHERE during the Always Ascending era. the band would post him all the time! I think they’ve scrubbed everything bc Bob didn’t get custody. but yeah Alvy was very much real and he was a cutie pie!!!!
I hope Alvy’s enjoying his retirement somewhere! I miss him sooooo bad but I understand why Bob didn’t get custody since he tours and all 😭
jbbartram-illu
gummygunk
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
origamiaround
ellievsbear
