| Foo Fighters | review #2 | 1995 |
| The Colour And The Shape | review #2 | 1997 |
| There Is Nothing Left To Lose | 1999 |
| One By One | 2002 |
After Nirvana's demise due to Kurt Cobain's suicide, drummer Dave Grohl began work on a solo project under the band name Foo Fighters, and recorded a self-titled debut in 1995 playing all the instruments (with the exception of rhythm guitar on one track), writing and singing all the material. Afterwards, he put together a backing band for the tour that included Pat Smear, William Goldsmith and Nate Mendel (the latter two of Sunny Day Real Estate). The album was a highly successful, on account of its infectious melodies, and yielded a couple massive hit singles in "I'll Stick Around" and "Big Me" and they became full-time members for the band's second release The Colour And The Shape, which was an even bigger success with three huge hits, "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", and "My Hero", although the lineup had shuffled somewhat by the time the Foo Fighters released their third album, There Is Nothing Left To Lose, which featured the hit "Learning To Fly", and was their most band-oriented, songwriting effort to date. Then they followed that up three years later with One By One.
--Nick Karn
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(Nick Karn's review)
Although this debut was recorded under a band name, the Foo Fighters' first was strictly Dave Grohl's new solo project after his career in Nirvana. Of course, since that band has now risen to legend status, Grohl endured massive, often unfair, comparisons to them. There are a few similarities - most notably when Grohl turns up the distortion for a few tracks, especially those in the second of the album like "Wattershed" and "Weenie Beenie", both shorter songs which feature pure screaming power and attitude, and the lyrics are also somewhat cryptic, but the melodies tend to be a lot more upbeat and pleasant, as well as quite well crafted, here and his voice is a bit easier to take than Kurt Cobain's, which actually for me is a big part of the reason I find this album more enjoyable than a great deal of Nirvana's career.
Although the majority of the material on this debut is outstanding, I would say the Foo Fighters are actually more effective as a singles than album band (this would be especially apparent on the more inconsistent The Colour And The Shape), with "I'll Stick Around", "Big Me", and to a lesser extent, the opening "This Is A Call" deservedly tearing up modern rock radio around the time. All the songs have distinctive guitar riffs and immediately memorable sing-along melodies, and function as first-rate alternative pop rock.
The folkish "For All The Cows", however, is the top highlight with by far and away the best verse hook and chorus on the album and should have been even more huge (but it strangely wasn't a hit single). The pummeling, indecipherable "Good Grief", the gentle acoustic strums to a soaring electric chorus in "Floaty", and the gentle and somber, but hopeful, distortion-filled closer "Exhausted" also score on this impressive, very recommended, outing.
I read somewhere that Dave Grohl (ex-Nirvana percussionist) actually was working on these self-made studio tapes BEFORE Mr. Cobain put a 12-gauge shell through his skull. As a result, Dave plays ALL the instruments on this album. Now, lets be realistic here. Dave is no Marty Friedman on the guitar or Geddy Lee on bass. Hell, he's not even close to tops on his preferred instrument (the drumkit). But he does a satisfactory job on each, and I cannot say I was openly disappointed with any instrumental performance. Hell, Mr. Grohl even came up with one of the more interesting riffs in my catalog, the main riff in "I'll Stick Around". "Big Me" is a great little pop tune, one of the few of that genre I can stand. And "This Is a Call" is the song that made me buy this recording in the first place. Finally, "Alone+Easy Target" has a extremely fat guitar riff that gets me every time. Four great songs. Other than "Weenie Beenie" (or whatever its name is), most of the other tracks are dull. So I really cannot recommend this one whole-heartedly
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[email protected] (tony souza)
This is still their (his) best. What struck me the most about a lot of the songs on here is the strong sense of melody. Almost all of the songs stick in your head. I also believe that Grohl's drumming plays a major part in that it gives the songs added power. On the minus side, "Weenie Beenie" "Oh, George" and "Wattershed" do nothng for me. "Exhausted", with it's over-distorted guitar, ends the album on a high note.
[email protected] (Andrew McQuillan)
Weenie Beenie and Watershed kick much ass and so does this album pretty much.
(Nick Karn's review)
The first release in which the Foo Fighters recorded as a band instead of a complete outlet for Dave Grohl's songs, The Colour And The Shape takes a somewhat mellower approach with more slow songs and ballads, and an even more obviously pop-tinged environment. Their experiments in this vein, however, are more unsuccessful than expected, as "See You" is a forgettable acoustic song that comes across as way too sappy, "Doll" is an unnecessary, but not bad, soft opening intro, "February Stars" doesn't quite gel to its' potential as a very nice ballad, and "Walking After You" can almost put one to sleep (especially since it comes near the end of the album). "Up In Arms", though, is helped when it turns from an overly mushy ballad into a convincing rocker.
These noticeable weak spots, however, are countered with the glorious hit singles - the aggressive and attitude-laden hook "Monkey Wrench" (with a vicious ending section) and the beautiful, atmospheric, and amazingly catchy "Everlong" are probably the pinnacle of their career, so far the closest the band has come to absolute pop-rock songwriting perfection. "My Poor Brain" and "Hey Johnny Park!" are other top-notch rockers that work a whole lot more than their softer side, the closer "New Way Home" starts off heavy with an uplifting melody, before quieting down and building up to a fabulous adrenaline-rush ending, and "My Hero" (the other hit single) has awesome lyrical passion, as evidenced by its' title. All of these highlights make The Colour And The Shape worthwhile despite its' somewhat disappointing moments.
I bought this album about a year ago, for I found a couple of tracks off the original Foo Fighters album enjoyable. Needless to say, my decision to by such a hugely popular album may alienate a few headbangers, but if it helps, I bought this album BEFORE the huge single "Everlong" got shoved down the throats of just about every radio listener. However, I will admit that it was the first single "Monkey Wrench" that made this purchase happen. Anyway, you have probably all heard "Everlong", and if your mind hasn't blocked out all things Foo after that overplayed single, you might also remember "Monkey Wrench". Now, to clear the air, "Everlong" is a good song. But if I hear it one more time on the radio, I will be forced to go insane and kill everybody. I cannot think of a rock single that was SO overplayed it made me sick. And ruined an otherwise enjoyable song. "Monkey Wrench" was not as overplayed, so I can still bear it.
"Hey Johnny, Park" is a pretty cool song, and I think it also got some radio time. Ditto for "My Poor Brain". I also like "Wind Up". And yet another radio single follows that song, the decent "My Hero", also was in overplay. "Enough Space" is a Nirvana ripoff, but still OK. On the other hand, there are a lot of VERY generic pop attempts on here. Almost every track that I have not mentioned falls into that category. My least favorite happens to be the meandering "Doll". It just sounds like every other poor attempt at slow pop I've heard. An OK purchase, I guess, but don't spend $18 on it.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
After a couple lineup changes for the band (one of which saw guitarist Pat Smear leave the band), Dave Grohl and the gang returned with the release of their third effort There Is Nothing Left To Lose, which leaves the occasional 'pop' love song dynamics of The Colour And The Shape and even some of the masterful direct and catchy punk/pop of the debut behind. For the first time, the Foo Fighters seem focused and tight enough as a unit, and the powerful hooks are probably as good as ever, especially in the masterful first single "Learn To Fly", which soars with its' uplifting and life-affirming chorus as the title demands it should, and the chaotic rocker "Breakout" and lyrically nasty (but catchy) "Gimme Stitches" also manage to stick in your head.
The overall sound seems to be not only the band's heaviest yet, but also most textured, which is especially apparent in the opener "Stacked Actors", which has a great distortion-filled riff in the chorus and kind of a 'bossa nova' feel in the verses. The ballad "Aurora" has a worthwhile "looking up at the stars" night feel and is emotionally uplifting, while the infectious "Generator" and "Headwires" have strong riffs, choruses, and an almost '21st century rock' atmosphere in the instrumental tones. The rest of the tracks, however, are really disappointing in comparison - "Next Year" and "Ain't It The Life" have a sort of generic, boring roots rock and country feel respectively, while "Live-In Skin" suffers from ridiculous lyrics, and "M.I.A." fails to make much of an impression as the closer. It's still an improvement over The Colour And The Shape, however, and its' best moments show that great infectious rock isn't quite dead yet.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Like the previous album, this album can sound like bland middle-of-the-road crap on first listen (at least this one really did to me the first couple times), but it's amazing how a fine sense of hooks can rescue such standard-sounding material. That doesn't mean there aren't big problems here, though - One By One has the potential to be as worthwhile as the last album, but falters a bit for a couple reasons besides the middle-of-the-road factor. First off, there's annoying production right out of the Vapor Trails school of bass-heavy dynamic compression that's a bothersome problem even on headphones. But most noticeably, for material that isn't anywhere near as based on interesting ideas as they are on hooks, almost everything on here is a minute or two overlong. Every song seems to do the same thing for 4-1/2 or 5 minutes, and there's more often than not no reason why they couldn't easily end at 3. But besides that, this stuff's good!
Good enough that I'd easily give it a 7 if it had decent production and was only something like 40 minutes long instead of, uh, 55. Once again, the singles shine through, with the simplistic, but effectively chugging, machine gun-like riff of the opener "All My Life" (with a cool screaming chorus, especially) and the heartfelt pop rock of "Times Like These", at whose ending the vocals gain a pretty affecting quality to them. Actually, the whole album starts off really well if you can ignore the obvious surface faults here, with "Low" riding another simple but punishing riff into your skull with an interesting contrast of quiet vocals, and "Have It All" boasting a really neat guitar tone for a sort of catchy chiming rocker (of course, towards the end of the song it sounds as if someone's constantly turning the X-bass button on and off, but we'll try to ignore that for now). Slightly overlong, but very nice first four track stretch we have here.
There are some other good things about the remaining tunes as well. "Halo" is actually the closest thing to an awesome song on here, a cool heavy roots rock-ish thing that turns into an uplifting burst of melodic goodness in the chorus, and the 'awaaaaaaaaaaaay' screams and solo towards the end are great touches. Elsewhere, the closing "Come Back" doesn't really need to be almost 8 minutes long, but I still really like the yearning epic quality it has. It also has the feel of a Jerry Cantrell-sung Alice In Chains tune in the verses (particularly the riff and vocal melody), which is fine by me, and the middle buildup is quite effective. The rest of the album only strikes me in parts, though - only the molasses pace of the anthem "Burn Away" and the boring, repetitive "Tired Of You" (despite nice flourishes from guest guitarist Brian May) are really subpar, but it's more obviously standard and overlong, you know, and only the choruses are memorable. All in all, a decent effort, though one that could have been somewhat more well thought out and non-generic, especially coming off a three year gap.
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