Alex Kapranos (lead vocals, guitar), Nick McCarthy (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Bob Hardy (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Paul Thomson (drums, percussion, backing vocals) had played in various bands during the 1990's, including The Karelia, Yummy Fur, 10p Invaders, and Embryo. Kapranos and Thomson met at a party, beginning a close friendship and playing together in Yummy Fur, subsequently teaming up to write songs. Around the same time, Kapranos taught his friend Bob Hardy how to play bass after being given a bass guitar by Mick Cooke of Belle & Sebastian, and he also met co-guitarist Nick McCarthy, who had returned to Scotland after studying jazz bass in Germany in 2001. Once the members came together, they settled on the name Franz Ferdinand for their band, originally after a racehorse called Archduke Ferdinand, which then inspired a discussion about Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his involvement in the start of World War One, and they adopted the name as they liked the alliteration. In May 2003 the band signed to Laurence Bell's independent record label, Domino Recording Company, moving to Gula Studios in Malmö, Sweden, to record their debut album with Cardigans producer Tore Johansson. In the latter part of 2003, the band released their debut single, 'Darts Of Pleasure', followed in January 2004 by 'Take Me Out', which reached No. 3 in the UK charts. Their eponymous album was released shortly afterwards, debuting at No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart in February 2004, and at No. 12 in the Australian album charts in April, although it only reached the lowest levels of the Billboard 200 album chart in the US. The album received a generally strong positive response from critics, and the band were compared to a long line of art school rock bands, such as The Beatles, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, Wire, Travis, and Blur.
On 7 September 2004, the album was awarded the 2004 Mercury Music Prize, and the band won an Ivor Novello Award in 2004 and two BRIT Awards in 2005. They spent much of 2005 in the studio in Glasgow working on their follow-up album, 'You Could Have It So Much Better', which was released in October 2005. They initially intended to leave the album self-titled like their debut, but they changed it to 'You Could Have It So Much Better...With Franz Ferdinand' before settling on the final title. It was again generally well received in the press, and seen as an album equal to, or better than, their first by most critics. This time the record entered the UK Album Charts at Number 1, and the US charts at Number 8. To support the album, four singles were released, with a couple of them including video-clip-only tracks on the flips. In January 2009 the band released their third studio album, 'Tonight: Franz Ferdinand', which they had been recording in Glasgow since mid-2007, in a disused building in Glasgow that had been a town hall in the past. The song 'Ulysses' was chosen to be the first single and was released on 19 January 2009, but it didn't see that much success in the UK Top 40, although it fared better in Spain and Japan. Once again, four singles were extracted from the album, and the band performed 'No You Girls' on the Comic Relief 2009 Top of The Pops special. On 1 June 2009, the band released 'Blood: Franz Ferdinand', a compilation album that includes dub music versions of songs from 'Tonight: Franz Ferdinand', and which was issued to coincide with Record Store Day.
Writing for a fourth studio album began in 2010, with a break in May 2012 to return to touring, playing several festivals during the summer, including a headlining slot at Field Day festival in London's Victoria Park. During their 2012 tour, the band gradually introduced new songs to their repertoire, and in May 2013 they officially announced that their fourth album would be titled 'Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action', and would be released on 26 August 2013. It found them re-establishing themselves as a workmanlike, crowd-pleasing dance-rock group by going heavy on the midtempo disco thump, and was a welcome return after a four year hiatus. On 9 March 2015, it was announced that the band had formed a supergroup with Sparks under the name FFS, with plans to release a studio album and tour Europe during that summer. 'The Domino Effect' was released on the group's YouTube channel as a teaser, with the John Congleton–produced album, 'FFS', appearing in June, and as a fan of both bands I was wary of the collaboration, but the album turned put to be a triumph. In July 2016, they announced that guitarist Nick McCarthy would not be involved in the recording and touring of their next album, in order to concentrate on his family and other musical interests, but it wasn't until May 2017, two days prior to the start of their North American tour, that they announced former Yummy Fur guitarist Dino Bardot as his replacement, joined by Julian Corrie on keyboards, synth and guitar. On 25 October, the band released the title track from their fifth studio album, 'Always Ascending', and six months later the album appeared. Paul Thomson left the band in October 2021, to be replaced by Audrey Tait, and this new line-up released their new single 'Billy Goodbye' on 2 November 2021, a new song taken from their greatest hits compilation 'Hits To The Head'.
Over their career the band have not only added non-album tracks to the b-sides of their singles, but have also contributed to a number of charity and tribute albums, as well as offering their services to the 'Alice In Wonderland' soundtrack, gifting their version of 'The Lobster Quadrille'. They've also teamed up with other bands to record each others songs, covering The Fire Engines' 'Get Up And Use Me', while The Fire Engines recorded a cover of 'Jacqueline', and they took a similar approach with Dutch band De Kift, covering their 'Heisa-Ho', whilst De Kift recorded a cover of 'Love and Destroy' with Dutch lyrics. As evidenced by those two records, the band love their covers, and have recorded versions of 'Sexy Boy' by Air, 'It Won't Be Long' by The Beatles, Pulp's 'Mis-Shapes', Gwen Stefani's top 5 hit 'What You Waiting For?', Blondie's 'Call Me', Britney Spears' 'Womanizer' and David Bowie's 'Sound and Vision', featuring Girls Aloud on backing vocals. The band also recorded with Jane Birkin, covering the Serge Gainsbourg song 'A Song For Sorry Angel' for the 2005 album 'Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited', as well as re-recording the track 'Brown Onions' for David Shrigley's compilation album 'Worried Noodles', and collaborating with Marion Cotillard for the 2010 Lady Dior campaign, with the band playing and the actress singing on 'The Eyes Of Mars'. So here is a collection singles, b-sides and some of those afore-mentioned oddities, showing another side to a group that might be seen as having a reputation for being just a little bit pretentious.
Track listing
Disc I - 2003-2006
01 Shopping For Blood (b-side of 'Darts Of Pleasure' 2003)
02 Van Tango (b-side of 'Darts Of Pleasure' 2003)
03 Truck Stop (b-side of 'Take Me Out' 2004)
04 All For You, Sophia (b-side of 'Take Me Out' 2004)
05 Words So Leisured (b-side of 'Take Me Out' 2004)
06 Better In Hoboken (b-side of 'Matinée' 2004)
07 Love And Destroy (b-side of 'Michael' 2004)
08 Don't Start (b-side of 'Michael' 2004)
09 Missing You (b-side of 'Michael' 2004)
10 Get Away (b-side of 'Do You Want To' 2005)
11 Your Diary (single 2005)
12 Fabulously Lazy b-side of 'Your Diary')
13 Sexy Boy (b-side of 'Walk Away' 2005)
14 A Song For Sorry Angel (single by Franz Ferdinand/Jane Birkin from 7" double-pack 2006)
Disc II - 2006-2014
01 L. Wells (b-side of 'The Fallen' 2006)
02 Jeremy Fraser (b-side of 'The Fallen' 2006)
03 Brown Onions (b-side of 'The Fallen' 2006)
04 Swallow, Smile (limited 7" from the Franz Ferdinand Fan Club membership pack 2006)
05 Wine In The Afternoon (b-side of 'Eleanor Put Your Boots On' 2006)
06 Ghost In A Ditch (b-side of 'Eleanor Put Your Boots On' 2006)
07 Anyone In Love (b-side of 'Ulysses' 2009)
08 New Kind Of Thrill (b-side of 'Ulysses' 2009)
09 You Never Go Out Anymore (b-side of 'Ulysses' 2009)
11 All My Friends (b-side of 'Can't Stop Feeling' 2009)
12 The Eyes Of Mars (promotional single for Lady Dior, with Marion Cotillard 2010)
13 Erdbeer Mund (b-side of 'Fresh Strawberries' 2014)
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