Franz Ferdinand (band) - Collaborations and Covers

Collaborations and Covers

Franz Ferdinand covered the LCD Soundsystem song "All My Friends" which appeared as a B-side on the single, and is also working on an album of Sparks covers, collaborating with the group on the recordings. They have also covered "Sexy Boy" by Air and "It Won't Be Long" by The Beatles, Pulp's popular single "Mis-Shapes", Gwen Stefani's top 5 hit "What You Waiting For?", and Blondie's "Call Me". Recently covered the Britney Spears song "Womanizer" and David Bowie's song "Sound and Vision", featuring Girls Aloud on backing vocals, for a compilation disc marking the 40th anniversary of BBC Radio One along with other leading artists. Additionally, Franz Ferdinand recorded a cover of The Fire Engines' song "Get Up and Use Me". In return, the Fire Engines recorded a cover of "Jacqueline". The band also took a similar approach with Dutch band De Kift, covering the song "Heisa-Ho" whilst De Kift recorded a cover of "Love And Destroy" with Dutch lyrics. The cover by De Kift is named "Liefde En Puin" which is the title "Love And Destroy" translated into Dutch. The band has had remixes by electronic artists Daft Punk, Hot Chip, Justice, The Avalanches, Microfilm, and Erol Alkan.

Kapranos announced that on 22 April 2008 he would begin collaborating with an unknown Canadian artist, as well as implying that the band was working with Xenomania on the new album, as Alex is a fan of their work with Girls Aloud. The band also performed, played, and recorded with Jane Birkin, covering the Serge Gainsbourg song "Sorry Angel" for the 2005 album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. In addition, Franz re-recorded the track "Brown Onions" for David Shrigley's compilation album Worried Noodles. The band kept instrumentation identical but used lyrics written by Shrigley which include the consistent repetition of the word "No" and occasionally "No brains, no teeth, no legs, no eyes...". Hot Chip, a band who are reported to be a favourite of Franz Ferdinand, also performed their own version of "No" on the same album.

The band 'met' Gorillaz in December 2005, and interviewed each other for a feature in Observer Music Monthly.

On 11 October 2008 at Diesel's Rock and Roll Circus, the band performed with rapper T.I. on his hit "Live Your Life".

At the 2009 NME Awards ceremony they performed a cover of Blondie's "Call Me" with Elly Jackson of La Roux on guest vocals.

When Franz appeared on Radio 1's Live Lounge on 6 April 2009 to promote No You Girls they covered Womanizer by Britney Spears. For their version they added in the interlude from 2004 B-Side "Shopping For Blood".

They have also collaborated with Marion Cotillard for the 2010 Lady Dior campaign. The band wrote the lyrics and plays the music for the song "The Eyes of Mars", while the actress is on vocals. Kapranos noted that it was refreshing working with her as she had a lot of fun going and retrying the song time and time again.

In 2010, Franz Ferdinand contributed to the "Alice in Wonderland" soundtrack with their adaption of the song "The Lobster Quadrille". Later that year, Kapranos and McCarthy collaborated on the song "Do It Again" with Edwyn Collins on his album Losing Sleep.