The Foo Fighters - Classic or Dud?

they are really very poor indeed.
i'm listening to 'the colour and the shape' that i just burned on my i-tunes and i'm already considering deleting it because it's sullying the good name of everything else in my library.

classic: the line "sometimes i feel i'm getting stuck between the handshake and the fuck" from 'my poor brain', and that one riff from 'hey, johnny park!'

dud: everything else, including the stuff i haven't bothered to listen to

"Fingernails is pretty.."

Such a bland, mediocre band. V. heartening to see an almost unanimous dud vote.

I hate their albums, but the singles are mostly great rock.

They seem to get progressively worse with each album.

I think Kenny's original post just about nailed it by calling them his favorite band in high school. They weren't mine, but they seem like a band perfect for that role - so that everything they put out after you got out of high school, whenever that was, was bad. So I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first album, <i>Colour and the Shape</i> still holds up pretty good, I would cherry-pick from <i>There Is Nothing Left To Lose</i>, then I graduated high school and everything since then I've heard the single and found it tuneless and grating. I don't know if they actually changed their sound or anything, but their hold on me was completely lost.

Search: All of <i>Foo Fighters</i>, especially the singles plus "Alone & Easy Target" and "Wattershed"... off TCATS, the singles again ("Everlong" and "My Hero" for pete's sake!) and "New Way Home"... off TINLTL, "Stacked Actors," "Live-In Skin."

There's a bunch of other good stuff on those albums but that's the indispensible stuff for me. Definitely the best post-grunge mainstream rock band on the US charts, IMO.

someday, someday, I will stop doing that

i love the first album and the first album only. it's so different from the others, basically because it's a glorified demo tape.

"THIS IS A CALL" 4EVER + 4TW

Dud.

Now, when I was in high school, a lad of just 15, having freshly sold my Howard Jones cassingles, I remember their self-titled debut album.

I was too much of a newb to know most of the material Foo drew their work from on their first album, but I really enjoyed (and still do) the clever pop tunes on the album. Even saw them on tour at a small local venue that year and got Dave's autograph on my flannel shirt (fuck you, it was a fad!) and ticket.

But even as a kid with bad taste, I never really got into The Colour and the Shape. It seemed to me that on that particular album, they became more generic and overproduced, and since then I haven't been a fan.

Their material is better than some of the other mainstream stuff out there, but give me their s/t anyday over what they're making now.

as a kid with bad taste, I never really got into The Colour and the Shape

Makes sense.

Left out two key words in that quote.

"indie fuck"

rofl. If you're going to pigeonhole someone you might want to be in the vicinity. I'm as much an indie fuck as Ally McBeal was a pornographic television show.

"as a kid", bro! chillax.

I wasn't aware that my neurons were firing any faster :)

Hesitantly classic. One great album (Colour), one good album (debut), a string of pretty decent mainstream rock singles (with a few duds tossed in), and a good live show means they can't be a complete dud in my book.

Otm, though I'd go one farther and dub everything after Colour/Shape a stinkpatch.

I'd say disc 1 of In Your Honor comes fairly close to being as good as the first two albums. Disc 2 really sinks the album's overall batting average, though.

Dud to the fucking max. I have a lot of hate for the Foo Fighters if only for their being a shining example of radio rock.

o noez!

I hope it's not too late for Pat Smear's pixie dust to help now that he's back.

I am a one way motorway
I'm the one that drives away
Then follows you back home
I am a street light shining
I'm a wild light blinding bright
Burning off alone

It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again

I am a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?

It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again

This was written by a former member of Nirvana.

Not sure what point you're trying to make there, but okay.

so, Nirvana sucked. Foo Fighters sucked too. what's yr point?

yeah plenty of Nirvana songs have lyrics as lame as that. and none of them have cool 7/8 riffs like that song has.

it is my belief that There Is Nothing Left To Lose is a very fine power-pop record (cf 'Generator', 'Learning To Fly', 'Aurora')

Too inconsistent to be classic, too many good songs to be dud.

like the first album but not enough to listen to it, extremely puzzled by their continued existence and (apparent) vitality

Thematically they shifted from "alternative" jibberish to "DAMN, woman, why can't you stop me from cheating on you" hard rock just as rock stations did, without getting so blatantly macho as to turn off the old fans who can still listen to rock stations.

plus Grohl can still write a hook

whether or not you like nirvana, its pretty funny what a Hagar Grohl has become when you look back at his roots.

I've only heard the one Scream track on the Dischord comp from a pre-Grohl record, so I don't really know what they sounded like. but he always struck me as a metal/classic rock kid who fell into punk/alternative rock, and the later Foos/Probot/QOTSA stuff he's done in the past few years probably reflects those roots as much as you could say for anyone whose career started as underground and ended up as mersh as his.

always? like when you were 12?

I'm sure he wasn't the only 15 year old punk drummer who dug Bonham but he might be the only one singing "It's a shame we have to die, my dear" in an arena today.

So really you just hate him for being successful.

Not sure what point you're trying to make there, but okay.

-- jon /via/ chi 2.0, Tuesday, November 13, 2007 11:22 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^^^^^^ (haha xpost)

I don't hate him now (too many Hagars out there who CAN'T write good hooks), and I didn't find him ridiculous until well after he was a millionaire.

if we're gonna harp on anything being a betrayal of his XHARDXCOREX roots it should probably be the goofy videos where he wears wigs and plays 'characters', not the self-serious dirges.

oh i won't harp on admirable ironies (Though "Everlong" is a way better video than "Learn To Fly").

Way upthread: Nirvana were terrible lyrically!

not in a "the more you live the more you give" way

Hagar would NEVER right "aqua seafoam shame"

write, ha

Rock star in "recovery lyrics" shocker. Just be glad we didn't have to hear Kurt's.

Sounds like they are officially carrying on without Hawkins (if that was in doubt):

pic.twitter.com/IcYduS7ZY4

— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) December 31, 2022

Josh Freese has been announced as the new drummer, surprising ... probably no one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmkQ3hIFbwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYWmNQT4VMU

Josh Freese is so good, anytime that guy is involved in anything is just tremendous, he even keeps a lot of Taylor's choices in the performance, Josh Freese for president

xpost - ok that was funny

Better quality version of the live stream -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPiSDRPw9C4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idib1kDvPyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L8abdskl08

Can we talk about the alternate reality where Dave Grohl and Louise Post never broke up and this is just what the Foo Fighters always sounded like and how I wanna be there

Heh I heard about Freese a few months ago from a friend in the know, seemed like the sensible and inevitable choice.

“show me how” is excellent, best song i’ve heard from them since wasting light

They should have held auditions for the content though. The Dream Theater drummer audition videos are great in a Spinal Tap/Some Kind of Monster way, doesn't matter if you hate the band, which everyone does (and should).

Yeah, Dream Theatre are fucking nonsense but I loved watching them struggle through (or not) the mad bit of math rock they had concocted to test each drummer out.

I thought the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concerts were kind of fun live drummer auditions, and I think they made the right choice but like...what if Omar Hakim joined the Foo Fighters?

Also Taylor's son Shane is absolutely capable but am glad they're not shoving a teenager in mourning into the most famous rock band on the planet

I wonder if Dave ever considered taking over on drums and finding new singers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Zgplw4AcQ

this video will prob get deleted eventually, but it's another new song from that stream where josh freese was announced as their drummer, chorus is the closest i've heard grohl come to the foos s/t sound in some time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MF6trC529M

“foo fighters stretching out” is usually a recipe for boredom but this 10 minute song is actually really good?

best foos record in ten years imminent

yeah, the new LP is excellent. my favourite from them since there is nothing left to lose. grohl's long been great at the craft of the rock anthem but these ones are actually about something meaningful.

Teachers single and video are very cool. Have not been this excited about foo music in a long time.

hoo yeah this album rules. one of my favorites of the year

guitar tones are perfect throughout, almost thought this was produced by vig (it’s self-produced with assistance from greg kurstin, somehow it sounds bigger and deeper and more like siamese dream than their actual recorded-to-tape vig album)

"beyond me" is like if a power ballad by heart were also a shoegaze song

and the title track reminds me of mastodon

fuck i think i love this album
i might cry

it’s the best

IT IS!

also i did in fact cry … damn, “rest” really got to me

i love the insane build from verse to chorus in Nothing At All — totally sounds like “Breed” for a moment

i also selfishly like having Dave on drums for this album for comfort/nostalgic reasons. but sad that he had to

Under You is the one that really gets me, love the hook for that so much

Under You is about both and all and blah blah blah, but ... i mean ... it's about Kurt, right? if we're honest, it's about Kurt.

Genius annotations and every article about the song says it's about Hawkins and maybe it is.

But to me, it's about Kurt.

the new one is pretty good but they still can't quite make a great album, it merely reaches the quality of their previous best work (the colour and the shape and wasting light) where there's some excellent material but also some that's just fine. a little disappointing because the singles had me hoping they might get there and they almost did. in some places it finally feels like the same band that made "everlong" which has always been weirdly singular in their catalogue. the dreamy guitar tones are lovely too and going full siamese dream on "rest" is a great move.

went back and checked out the singles for the last few albums and wow what the hell had they been doing? some absolutely dreadful stuff

I'd have to agree, though to be fair, being a good singles band for a decade and a half is nothing to sneeze at. Greatest Hits is too thin to fit the bill (especially when it's diluted with a couple of unremarkable re-recordings and a couple of underwhelming new tracks), but a compilation that strings together their 18 or 20 best singles would be highly welcome.

this album being so good triggered a foo fighters discog run. s/t through wasting light was better than i remembered. post-wasting light, worse. medicine at midnight is godawful

there is nothing left to lose is a flawless power pop record btw

"godawful" is harsh, pretty sure i'd like medicine more on second listen, it just did nothing i want a foo fighters record to do outside of "love dies young," which is the cruelly the last song

idk, I think "godawful" isn't far off for MatM, and I'm usually an apologist for these guys

the new one is basically what i'd want there is nothing left to lose to have been, a similar shiny guitar tone but the songs are stronger overall

post-wasting light grohl seemed to become obsessed with recording session gimmicks to keep him interested? & they got out of their comfort zone but completely forgot how to play to their strengths at all

there is nothing left to lose is a flawless power pop record btw

I still think it's their best.

A coworker just sent me pics from a recent music fest; he was standing with his bf watching Peaches perform, and noticed Grohl was standing right behind them. His bf got a few selfies w/Grohl... pretty cool!

revisiting the new one, god the best parts of this are like the best foos record ever. also really appreciate “the glass”’s resemblance to “in the meantime”