The Foo Fighters - Classic or Dud?

Good major Label Rock/Metal albums from Late 90's-2008?

debut album was i think the fifth cd i ever bought. love this record, even if it sucks apart from the first three tracks.

I really like "Big Me" and "Everlong," but I absolutely despise "Fingernails are pretty. Fingernails are good." "Learn to Fly" was OK. Haven't heard anything else.

First album showed promise that never really materialized on later albums.

first album is great, love the whole thing. fun, garage-y. everything after is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

2nd album >>> 1st album

no wai.

Altho the second album is not bad. Anything after that is just terrible. Playing Guitar Hero: Metallica and it has the song "Stacked actors" on it which I think is from the 3rd album. Absolute shite. Not as bad as "I've got another confession to maaaaaaaaake" song, which sounds like something from a 1980s beer commercial.

i actually preferred grohl's lyrics when they were just scratch, "fingernails are pretty" and all. when he started taking his writing and music a bit more seriously, his earnest-rocker meter went off the charts and i tuned out. i do agree with the notion that the first disc of in your honour is probably the closest they've come to matching the greatness of their first two albums.

The only album I actually like is the 1st one. The 2nd and 3rd have a few good songs. I would still listen to their stuff at least once when it came out, even though I didn't really like much of it, up til the point "Times Like These" came out - it was blaring out of the neighbour's window and I went to my gf "omg wtf this song is total shit, like embarrassingly awful, who is it?". That was the moment I went off Foo Fighters forever.

I like to picture some elaborate swearing off ceremony that included burnt pictures of Grohl and a cracked copy of the first album.

He changed, man.

He's like a nice Chad Kroeger now.

Mostly dud for me overall, but I have to hand it to their recording engineers - they all sound great. Call 'em the alt.rock Boston.

― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Wednesday, March 19, 2003 3:43 AM Bookmark

OTM about the recordings. Also the multitracked Grohl voice just has a really distinctive sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONkiLR5Ehys

^^^ actually a pretty good melodic rock song, didn't think they still had it in 'em.

yeah i didn't really give that song much of a chance when it came out. it isn't so bad, but the more i listen to their older stuff, the more i really wish they had stayed that power-pop course.

I'm listening to the first album at the moment for the first time in 800 years. "I'll Stick Around" is quite powerful in its furious riffage.

"Wheels" is totally the weakest of even their most recent singles, "Long Road To Ruin" is a way better melodic pop tune

"Wheels" sounds like Gerry Rafferty.

Classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebJ2brErERQ

LOVE pat's beanie cap

oh man. thanks for posting. maybe this album will be good, and i can take a break from being a foo fighters apologist!

D U D

Love the video and the song is pretty decent too.

album is pretty tite. bob mould's backing vocalsonthat one song are a thrill too.

takes a while but the journey ref was worth it. and I totally approve of Dave Grohl hitting Danzig poses in front of the band instead of playing guitar.

read something about a feature-film doc on the way

Foo Fighters: Never Say Over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At3rZUgQsh8

more new stuffs. they sound like a completely different band. what the hell happened between that dud of a last record and this?

i'm also wondering who's playing the guitar solo because that sounds a bit beyond both dave and chris.

they recorded the whole album in Grohl's garage and did everything analog until the mastering process iirc

hahah they paid all that money to build a fancy studio for them to record in and they end up recording in a garage? niiiiiice.

oh man "Rope" is fucking aces

I have zero opinion on the Foo Fighters, but I think their attitude to Glee is great

Don’t count on hearing the Foo Fighters hit “Times Like These” on Glee anytime soon. Frontman Dave Grohl says he and his bandmates are squarely in the corner of Kings of Leon and Slash. As in, they want no part of the Ryan Murphy-helmed show.

“It’s every band’s right, you shouldn’t have to do f---ing Glee,” Grohl told THR following the premiere of Foo Fighters: Back and Forth, the new Foo Fighters documentary which just made its South By Southwest debut. “And then the guy who created Glee is so offended that we’re not, like, begging to be on his f---ing show… f--- that guy for thinking anybody and everybody should want to do Glee.”

You might be wondering, has Grohl ever actually watched the show? As it turns out, yes, he gave Glee a whirl. “I watched 10 minutes. It’s not my thing,” Grohl grizzled. But he doesn’t have as much of a problem with the series as he does with its creator.

Recounting anti-Glee comments made by Slash earlier this year and subsequent retorts by Murphy, reported by THR, Grohl explained to drummer Taylor Hawkins: “The Glee guy, what a f---ing jerk. Slash was the first one. He wanted to do Guns ‘n’ Roses and Slash is like, ‘I hate f---ing musicals. It’s worse than Grease.’ Then [Murphy's] like, ‘Well, of course he’d say that, he’s a washed up ol’ rock star, that’s what they f---ing do.’ And then Kings of Leon say, ‘No, we don’t want to be on your show.’ And then he’s like, ‘Snotty little assholes…’ And it’s just like, Dude, maybe not everyone loves Glee. Me included.”

Said Hawkins: “Yeah, f--- that shit.”

http://wastinglight.heroku.com/

streaming! sounds good so far.

there goes my heroku

New album is pretty great, imho, best thing they've done since The Colour and the Shape. I know these guys get a lot of backlash for being sorta formulaic and like too popular, but, man as far as over-hyped mega-selling mainstream rock bands go, they are so much better than the alternatives.

Even when they're sucking, I still kind of like them because Grohl is an all-time cool duder.

That Financial Times piece on Grohl was pretty good (via Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2290837/), but then tosses in this hyperbolic boner:

It's practically unheard of for a drummer to make it as a lead singer—perhaps the only other famous example is Phil Collins, who forged a solo career after his time in Genesis. Yet Collins is not playing stadium gigs 20 years on.

Anyway, that new Foo Fighters single sounds like Rush.

Yeah, I think Grohl's everydude personality helps out a lot. If he was on some ego-fueled Stapp trip or something, it would make the ubiquity much less tolerable. The only thing that really makes squicky about this band is that Alive & Well bullshit, but I think that's more Nate Mendel's doing than Grohl, iirc.

somehow i managed to get two instances of "white limo" going on that player at the same time, a 16th note apart. so i thought that there was this crazy slapback delay on the drums and that it suddenly sounded unimaginably heavy and evil. now i am very disappointed.

Kind of cool that Bob Mould has a guest appearance on one of the tracks.

Yeah I saw that, which explains why XRT has been playing the hell out of that track instead of any of the other singles.

somehow i managed to get two instances of "white limo" going on that player at the same time, a 16th note apart. so i thought that there was this crazy slapback delay on the drums and that it suddenly sounded unimaginably heavy and evil.

I just tried to replicate this, but I don't know if it's exactly the same thing you heard. Mix I made sounds pretty badass, though.

http://www.box.net/shared/vahycs52oh

Awesome. I love the Foo Fighters when they're good. I have a playlist called "mediocre modern rock" and it is mostly just the FFs greatest hits 1995-2005.

(and that playlist might be about to get longer? can't wait to listen)

i really love 'there is nothing left to lose' - its a great soppy power-pop album. new one's a cracker too.

streaming link up thread still works, yay!
I'm a huge Grohl fan but lost interest in the last couple of Foo albums...am LOVING this. Definitely will pick it up.

dave grohl really likes gum

ugh yes

it's the only caveat to an otherwise pretty perfecto rock dude

I was jealous of him not for being in Nirvana, not for being an awesome drummer, not for hanging out with Lemmy, but for those rumors of him hooking up with both of the Veruca Salt girls.

i thought he just dated one of them for a while? or i guess there's a rumor in addition to that?