Foo Fighters - An In-Depth Look
FOO FIGHTERS - An In-Depth Look
An absolute titan of modern rock music, arguably one of the biggest arena bands in the world and in Dave Grohl, a hugely beloved front man, but as a band, how consistent are they? Do they put out great, timeless albums, or are they a singles band? Are they still an interesting band, or are they coasting merely on brand recognition these days? Let's take a look at their full discography and see how they stack up...
As usual, we're going to start in reverse order, with the least essential album release first, all the way through to their masterpiece, with scoring as per the BANGERS method, which is outlined right here. As usual, the notable tracks are listed with each release, with the BANGERS in bold. I haven't included the compilation Rare Meat as it is difficult to get hold of, and not particularly essential to the Foo Fighters canon, consisting mainly of old covers. If you think it should be in though, let me know and I'll add it in.
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9. Sonic Highways [2014]
Notable Tracks: Nothing
Sonic Highways is an interesting project. A tour around the US, looking at the studios and the bands that inhabit key cities in the growth of American music, the HBO documentary at the heart of this project was fascinating, a chance to hear from some key figures in US musical history. Chicago, the DC area, Seattle, NYC, Austin, Nashville, New Orleans, even Rancho de la Luna, home of the infamous Desert Sessions, all of these places are vibrant hubs of music, home to the genesis of some of the greatest bands the world has ever seen. So how on earth did this album end up so dull?!
The music is the very definition of safe with all sense of personality stripped out of it. It’s like they set out to compile a short album of forgettable album tracks. This is Grohl and co on autopilot. One of the aims of this project was that the personality and sound of each city would permeate the music, but still with a Foo Fighters edge, but it completely fails in this regard, every track is non-descript, location wise. The Feast and the Famine is supposed to be this love letter to DC punk and hardcore, but just comes across like a discarded idea from One By One. Something From Nothing, blatant thievery from Dio’s Holy Diver aside, is a bland opener, Congregation is 70’s radio rock dross, the rest is barely even memorable. The worst offender is Outside though, a song so devoid of hooks or even melody that you almost switch off to it. It’s the sort of song that plays when you have an MRI, just there to block out the noise. There’s guest spots all over the record, from Dave’s old Scream band mates and Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard to Joe Walsh and Rick Nielsen, but they add nothing at all.
The lyrics are by far the lowest point of the record though, they are AWFUL. There’s so many allusions to venues or bands that the whole things sounds insincere and forced. Lines of songs are just regurgitated sentences from the talking head interviews, and nothing seems to meld together. There’s a defined lack of emotion in anything, there’s attempts to give it in edge every time Dave pulls out the patented Grohlgrowl, but it’s hollow. If there’s anyone out there than can sing along to any of this record outside of the choruses i’ll be surprised.
Entirely skippable, nothing on this record adds to the legacy of the Foo Fighters in the slightest.
Entirely skippable, nothing on this record adds to the legacy of the Foo Fighters in the slightest.
8. Concrete and Gold [2017]
BANGERS Rating: 0.182
Notable Tracks: Run, The Sky is a Neighbourhood
I’ll be perfectly honest, I found the vast majority of this album horrendously dull, just an overblown mess of false earnesty, classic rock pomp, pointless guest spots (McCartney, Timberlake, Alison Mosshart) and a lack of creative control. A band with too much money just chucking a record out as a reason to go on tour. The classic rock influences are all over this record, the eponymous track that closes the album out would sit perfectly at home in the middle of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Make It Right must have been nicked out of John Paul Jones bag during Them Crooked Vultures’ recording session, it’s that close to a late era Led Zeppelin track and Happy Ever After, once scrubbed of the pop sheen, would be perfectly home on one of Neil Young’s early records with it’s folky shuffle. None of that equals good though, you just get the nagging feeling that you’ve heard all this before, and you’ve heard it done better.
Sunday Rain, which has Paul McCartney on drums for some fucking reason, is another Hawkins lead vocal which doesn’t deliver, and the whole track is just Heartbreakers-lite and a bit naff. Run is the strongest song on the album by a mile, and actual bonafide Foo Fighters singalong belter, and it’s no great surprise that it was the lead single, with its dramatic hook, angsty vocal and angular main riff. The Sky is a Neighborhood is probably the only other genuinely enjoyable track from the record. It’s wildly different from the stuff they’ve done before, a bit Rolling Stones, a bit Beatles, a bit prog, there’s string sections and a gospel / chain gang stomping chorus that’s not a million miles away from the kind of thing that Zeal & Ardor is doing. If the whole record was this in vein, it could have been something special, so here’s hoping they take this approach in the future.
On the whole though, whilst it’s better than the experiment of Sonic Highways, this is firmly down the bottom end of their output.
7. In Your Honor [2005]
BANGERS Rating: 0.300
Notable Tracks: Best of You, Friend of a Friend, Over and Out, No Way Out, DOA
So, if One by One was a bit too long and half the songs are completely throwaway, making In Your Honor a double album is a really good idea, eh? I get the concept behind it, you’ve got the softer acoustic album to showcase the gentler side of things, but because it’s the Foo Fighters, there has to be a loud, rock element as well, but for me, the whole thing is a bit of a misfire.
The acoustic disc is a particular stinker, the songs are nice enough, but they don’t really go anywhere. Still is Nick Drake-lite, What If I Do? and Miracle meld into one long forgettable track and Another Round sounds like a particularly egregious copy of the “sad punk guys go acoustic” formula. Friend of a Friend is the standout from the disc, the songwriting actually benefiting from the acoustic format, rather than sounding like a band deliberately restraining themselves for the sake of the concept. This is Grohl with his guard down, not playing the persona of rock’s Uncle Dave, there’s a naked emotion in the song, and it highlights the vapidness of some of the other acoustic tracks. Some of the tracks on this disc could be great songs if they were given some oomph, Over and Out being one of these. It’s still a good song, but you almost feel it would be a 10/10 Foo Fighters track with a heavier reworking. On The Mend is forgettable, but at least it’s not Virginia Moon. A bossanova tinged slice of nonsense, it comes across like it was purpose built to make you not get annoyed in the queue at Starbucks. Cold Day In The Sun has Taylor Hawkins on vocals, but it doesn’t benefit from this at all, veering wildly into the Radio 2 Sunday dad rock space that his singing voice sits in, before album closer Razor just finger picks its way into mediocrity.
The acoustic disc is a particular stinker, the songs are nice enough, but they don’t really go anywhere. Still is Nick Drake-lite, What If I Do? and Miracle meld into one long forgettable track and Another Round sounds like a particularly egregious copy of the “sad punk guys go acoustic” formula. Friend of a Friend is the standout from the disc, the songwriting actually benefiting from the acoustic format, rather than sounding like a band deliberately restraining themselves for the sake of the concept. This is Grohl with his guard down, not playing the persona of rock’s Uncle Dave, there’s a naked emotion in the song, and it highlights the vapidness of some of the other acoustic tracks. Some of the tracks on this disc could be great songs if they were given some oomph, Over and Out being one of these. It’s still a good song, but you almost feel it would be a 10/10 Foo Fighters track with a heavier reworking. On The Mend is forgettable, but at least it’s not Virginia Moon. A bossanova tinged slice of nonsense, it comes across like it was purpose built to make you not get annoyed in the queue at Starbucks. Cold Day In The Sun has Taylor Hawkins on vocals, but it doesn’t benefit from this at all, veering wildly into the Radio 2 Sunday dad rock space that his singing voice sits in, before album closer Razor just finger picks its way into mediocrity.
The “loud” disc is a bit better, but not by much. This is really where the Foo Fighters cemented their formula (big chorus, abrasive verses, the Grohl growl) as a singles band. Because the singles are really the tracks that stand out. In Your Honor starts the album with a big old slice of rock pomp, pounding toms and guitars, but the whole thing is just a slow build into the last 30 seconds or so. No Way Back is a promising big Foos song, formulaic - yes, but also solid fun. Best of You is probably the biggest song they’ve done, except maybe Everlong, co-opted by sports highlight packages, motivational videos, charity appeals, you name it. I mean bloody hell, even PRINCE covered it at half time in the fucking Super Bowl. It truly is THE Foo Fighters song to the wider audience, and the reason for this is that it’s a great song, and one that I can see people still playing 20 or 30 years from now. DOA is another fine example of the solid 8/10 Foo Fighters single, but from here on out, in what is also sadly becoming a trope of the band, the wheels come off and we’ve got another heavily front loaded record. Hell is a 2 minute filler, The Last Song seems to build for eternity on that snare before just going nowhere, Free Me is a great riff trapped in a forgettable song and Resolve is completely interchangeable with the dross that closed out There Is Nothing Left To Lose. I can’t remember anything about The Deepest Blues Are Black, even though I’ve literally just listened to it again, so that should tell you my thoughts on that track and End Over End is an inoffensive album closer, nothing special, but not terrible.
Much like the acoustic disc seems forcibly restrained by its concept, the heavier side comes across forcibly strained, trying to force energy into some pretty lifeless songs but not achieving it at all. I think this album is probably the first record where Nate Mendel is lost as well, filling the spaces left by the driving force of the band, which is now Grohl and Hawkins. There’s nothing wrong with bass players that do that, a tight rhythm section is fundamental, but every album after and including this one is missing that flourish he would give tracks like Gimme Stitches or My Poor Brain.
The band shot for the moon with this one, but unfortunately only landed a couple of fields over. Worth a couple of listens, but it’s the sort of CD that you’d keep in the car and forget it’s there.
The band shot for the moon with this one, but unfortunately only landed a couple of fields over. Worth a couple of listens, but it’s the sort of CD that you’d keep in the car and forget it’s there.
6. Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace [2007]
BANGERS Rating: 0.417
Notable Tracks: The Pretender, Let It Die, Long Road To Ruin, Home
Seeking to meld the two records of In Your Honor into one consistent record that highlighted both the loud and the quiet side of the bands, the Foo Fighters got The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton, famed for his work with the absolute champions of loud/quiet/loud dynamics the Pixies, back in the studio and on the whole, it pretty much works. There are some great songs on the album and a bunch of alright ones, but nothing that’s particularly stinky. This is a very serious record though, there’s not much brevity amongst all the introspection.
The album kicks off with The Pretender, and it’s a stone cold banger, all day. Starting off with a delicate vocal over a quiet arpeggio, once those snare hits come in it all goes massive, and what a bloody chorus this song has. The bridge into the ending is spectacular as well. Let It Die follows, with it’s debatable lyrics rumoured to be about Kurt and Courtney (for my money, it definitely is), again starting delicately as an acoustic number before building into something altogether angrier, with the welcome return of Pat Smear adding some crunch. This is a sad, angry song beneath it’s calm exterior and it’s another highlight of the album. Erase/Replace is a big stadium rocker, but not one for the legacy.
Long Road To Ruin is another big single song, massively singable with a giant hook and a big bass groove. From this point on though, we’re on solid Foo Fighters album ground, nothing spectacular, nothing shit, just cruising along the middle of the road. Come Alive and Stranger Things… coast along comfortably, with Stranger Things especially inhabiting the same space that Incubus filled on Morning View. Cheer Up Boys and Summer’s End are breezy pop-rock songs, fun whilst they’re on, but wildly forgettable. If they play them live, it’s perfect for nipping to the bar, because you know you’re not going to miss anything too special. Ballad of The Beaconsfield Miners is a good hearted bit of filler, an ode to the two Tasmanian miners buried in the Beaconsfield mine collapse. Statues and But, Honestly pass by without incident before the album closes with Home, which is a wild change of pace for the band, a piano led track where Grohl, solo for the vast majority of the track, yearns for the simplicity and love that comes with a stable home life. There’s a touch of the Beatles' In My Life to it, and whilst it’s an outlier to their canon, I think it’s a strong song.
The album kicks off with The Pretender, and it’s a stone cold banger, all day. Starting off with a delicate vocal over a quiet arpeggio, once those snare hits come in it all goes massive, and what a bloody chorus this song has. The bridge into the ending is spectacular as well. Let It Die follows, with it’s debatable lyrics rumoured to be about Kurt and Courtney (for my money, it definitely is), again starting delicately as an acoustic number before building into something altogether angrier, with the welcome return of Pat Smear adding some crunch. This is a sad, angry song beneath it’s calm exterior and it’s another highlight of the album. Erase/Replace is a big stadium rocker, but not one for the legacy.
Long Road To Ruin is another big single song, massively singable with a giant hook and a big bass groove. From this point on though, we’re on solid Foo Fighters album ground, nothing spectacular, nothing shit, just cruising along the middle of the road. Come Alive and Stranger Things… coast along comfortably, with Stranger Things especially inhabiting the same space that Incubus filled on Morning View. Cheer Up Boys and Summer’s End are breezy pop-rock songs, fun whilst they’re on, but wildly forgettable. If they play them live, it’s perfect for nipping to the bar, because you know you’re not going to miss anything too special. Ballad of The Beaconsfield Miners is a good hearted bit of filler, an ode to the two Tasmanian miners buried in the Beaconsfield mine collapse. Statues and But, Honestly pass by without incident before the album closes with Home, which is a wild change of pace for the band, a piano led track where Grohl, solo for the vast majority of the track, yearns for the simplicity and love that comes with a stable home life. There’s a touch of the Beatles' In My Life to it, and whilst it’s an outlier to their canon, I think it’s a strong song.
At this point, you know what you’re getting with a Foo Fighters album. A couple of big singles, some solidly average rock songs and maybe a surprise or two, and this album is the absolute poster child for that.
5. One by One [2002]
Notable Tracks: All My Life, Low, Times Like These, Tired of You
Going into this record, the band were not in a good place at all, and this is all over the record, leading to an album with three or four great songs and a whole bunch of guff. Recorded in about two weeks, after chucking away the previous version of the album (which they spent a MILLION DOLLARS on) due to it being boring, if this is the preferred version, you can only imagine how bad the original must have been. All of the members of the band had gone off and done side projects after Taylor Hawkins’ heroin overdose left him in a coma, leading the band to take a break, and this disharmony is wildly obvious to anyone with ears. You could argue that maybe the creative malaise that set in at this point has possibly never been recovered from.
Definitely the heaviest Foo Fighters album, it starts off with the one-two punch of All My Life and Low, and if the whole album was in this vein, I’d be writing about this record nearer the top of the list. The part when the band kicks back in after the “done, done / on to the next one” section in All My Life is probably my favourite thing the band have done in the 21st century, it’s just a perfect heavy rock break. Have It All starts off solid, with a interesting high riff over a driving low end, but once the vocals come in, it all goes a bit boring, with a wildly anticlimactic chorus. Everybody knows Times Like These, the track is one of the gold standards of the modern Foo Fighters sound and lyrically it encapsulates the entire scenario around this album, and when paired up with that catchy as anything hook, it’s a great modern rock radio type of song. Unfortunately, from here on out, bar Tired of You which, to my ears anyway, hearkens back to that raw, stripped writing of the first album, EVERYTHING is just a bit of a plodder.
There’s parts of great songs here, but the whole thing is overlong (as opposed to Everlong, which is probably where they were aiming) and horrendously front loaded. Swap Tired of You for Have It All, and they could have just put the first four tracks out as EP whilst they figured out what the fuck they wanted to do as a band.
There’s parts of great songs here, but the whole thing is overlong (as opposed to Everlong, which is probably where they were aiming) and horrendously front loaded. Swap Tired of You for Have It All, and they could have just put the first four tracks out as EP whilst they figured out what the fuck they wanted to do as a band.
4. Wasting Light [2011]
BANGERS Rating: 0.500
Notable Tracks: Bridge Burning, These Days, Walk, Rope, Back and Forth
Going back to basics after the precise and clean, arguably overproduced records since One by One, Grohl decided that Wasting Light should be recorded as analogue as possible. Live tracked in his garage, completely recorded to tape and edited by hand with razor cutting and pasting, it’s as back to basics as a huge band like this can get. Produced by Butch Vig and mixed by Alan Moulder, it’s as 90’s alt-rock royalty as you can get, and it absolutely works. It’s the best sounding Foo Fighters album since the beginning, there’s energy and depth and an urgency to it which gets produced and mixed out of the majority of their albums. The triple guitar approach works, with each guitarist actually having a defined, unique sound, with Chris Shiflett front and centre, Grohl holding the rhythm and Pat Smear, with his first proper album recording since The Colour and The Shape adding a dirty baritone sound to the proceedings, the whole thing mixes brilliantly into a kind of guitar tone wall of death.
Kicking off (as usual) with a belter at the beginning, Bridge Burning is a cracking song, utilising the loud/quiet dynamic to full effect, with its central scaling riff building into an understated, yet eminently singable chorus which gets bigger as the song progresses. Cracking stuff. Rope is no slouch either, with some complex drum patterns and tight vocal harmonies under the layered central riffs. Bob Mould guests on Dear Rosemary, but he’s a bit under utilised and the track doesn’t quite hit the mark. White Limo is down towards the heavier side of things, probably the wildest they’ve gotten since Wattershed on the first record, and whilst this makes for a great live track, on record the distorted vocals distract from what could have been a balls out classic. Arlandria and These Days bring the tempo and the tone back down, and whilst Arlandria is an inoffensive mid album track, perfectly suitable as background music to any possible scenario, it’s never going to make a list of anyone’s favourite songs. These Days, for all it’s calm, has the Grohl growl sounding more organic and genuine than it has for a long time, and it’s a chorus designed for the arena, thousands of people singing it back, and when the hook kicks back in after the bridge around the four minute mark, it’s a genuine goosebump kind of moment and one of the highlights of the album.
Back and Forth is squarely in the territory of There Is Nothing Left To Lose, big hooky singalongs, crunchy guitars and melodies on top of melodies. A Matter of Time and Miss the Misery veer a bit too close to the generic Foo sound of the previous couple of albums but are perfectly serviceable, whereas I Should Have Known starts off a bit too close to soft rock throwaway ballad nonsense, but gets saved by Krist Novoselic’s GLORIOUS and sadly missed bass tone, but by the end of the track, the melodrama has been binned off and in its place is a heavy overload of sound. Walk finishes the album off in beautiful fashion, with its lyrics of bettering yourself by righting your wrongs and the realisation of your faults and it’s simple structure, the song is firmly in full on rock anthem territory, ending the album on a glorious high. As an experiment of back to basics, it absolutely works, which begs the question as to what the fuck happened for Sonic Highways?!
Back and Forth is squarely in the territory of There Is Nothing Left To Lose, big hooky singalongs, crunchy guitars and melodies on top of melodies. A Matter of Time and Miss the Misery veer a bit too close to the generic Foo sound of the previous couple of albums but are perfectly serviceable, whereas I Should Have Known starts off a bit too close to soft rock throwaway ballad nonsense, but gets saved by Krist Novoselic’s GLORIOUS and sadly missed bass tone, but by the end of the track, the melodrama has been binned off and in its place is a heavy overload of sound. Walk finishes the album off in beautiful fashion, with its lyrics of bettering yourself by righting your wrongs and the realisation of your faults and it’s simple structure, the song is firmly in full on rock anthem territory, ending the album on a glorious high. As an experiment of back to basics, it absolutely works, which begs the question as to what the fuck happened for Sonic Highways?!
3. Foo Fighters [1995]
BANGERS Rating: 0.625
Notable Tracks: This is a Call, I'll Stick Around, Big Me, Alone + Easy Target, For All The Cows, Wattershed
SELF TITLED - In the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s suicide that brought an end to the existence of Nirvana, Dave Grohl was in a funk. Depressed about both the loss of his friend and his band, he turned down offers to join the bands of Tom Petty and Danzig, and instead went to the studio to record his own one man band project. This wasn’t Grohl’s first time recording his own songs, having put out the Pocketwatch tape and re-recording one of its tracks, Marigold, as a b-side to Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box single, but there’s a bit more to these than mere 8-track demos or b-sides. Performed completely alone, bar a bit of guitar on X-Static from Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs), there’s a rawness on this record which is unique in the Foo’s discography. Vocals are often double tracked, sometimes even three or four times, giving the effect of both a fuller band and masking any performance anxieties in his performance. Finding the whole exercise quite cathartic, Grohl would go on to fully realise this as a project, signing to Capitol and putting together a band, consisting of ex Nirvana band mate Pat Smear and Sunny Day Real Estate’s Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith, to play these songs live.
From a lyrical perspective, there’s not much depth in this record, with a lot of the tracks seemingly nonsensical, like the balloons, medicine and fingernails that make up This Is A Call, or the almost stream of consciousness rambling of For All The Cows, but this aside, there are a lot of great straight up pop songs on this record. Angry, depressed rock this is not, it’s a sunny Pixies-esque indie rock record, with the only really “heavy” tracks being Wattershed and I’ll Stick Around. On the whole, the album is definitely worth picking up, with Big Me, This Is A Call and I’ll Stick Around being undeniable classic Foo Fighters tracks.
2. There Is Nothing Left To Lose [1999]
BANGERS Rating: 0.727
Notable Tracks: Stacked Actors, Breakout, Learn To Fly, Gimme Stitches, Generator, Aurora
There Is Nothing Left To Lose is arguably the album that thrust the Foo Fighters into the mainstream as an arena level band. Rock fans, even kinda casual ones, knew the band at this point, thanks to Grohl’s position of being in Nirvana and the relative breakthrough success of both Everlong and Monkey Wrench, but with Learn To Fly and Breakout getting heavy rotation on MTV2 thanks to their comedy tinged videos (something that would become a bit of a tradition with the band), this is arguably the band’s last (relatively) small release.
It’s definitely an album of two halves, the first half being almost completely solid, before dropping off around Aurora into serviceable but ultimately perfunctory US radio rock. Stacked Actors kicks things off in style, big snare hits leading into a Latin lounge vibe, complete with scrapers, rolling bass and hushed vocals on the verses, before hitting you with the big chorus hook. As an introduction to Taylor Hawkins’ drumming style, this is an almost perfect showcase, showing the lightness of touch as well as the balls out style that he would become known for later on. Breakout is a masterclass in what is the albums strongest point, and that is melody. There is more of a pop edge in this record than the earlier stuff, certainly the eponymous debut, with Grohl’s vocal range showcasing a more melodic performance that accentuates the cleaner guitar work. A great song, especially the phaser effect on the guitar intro.
Learn to Fly was the monster hit of the album, a four minute power pop masterpiece with a hugely memorable chorus / hook, guaranteed to get tens of thousands of people singing along at their shows until the end of the careers. Thrust into the spotlight with the comedic video starring the band (and Tenacious D) as pretty much everybody, this really is a perfect example of a great crossover rock record of the era, catchy melodies, an upbeat chorus, fun drum fills and that big chorus, it’s a big highlight. The track segues into Gimme Stitches, another great song from the album, again pushing that big chorus feel. Nate Mendel’s deserves praise for this track as well, as his bass lines have a real drive to them, not just sitting in the rhythm section, but pushing forward with some bass runs and flourishes similar to his work in Sunny Day Real Estate (and something that is missing from later Foos records). Unleashing his inner Peter Frampton, Grohl uses a talkbox to kick off Generator, another song in the same style as Stacked Actors, with a quieter verse rolling into a louder bridge / chorus, and with it’s lyrics of complicated love and relationship, it fits well with the next track, Aurora, with its overarching message that things can be better if they’re willing to work at it, which could be analogous to Grohl’s personal relationships, the band’s creative situation or the struggles they had dealt with with the revolving door of musicians at the beginning.
Learn to Fly was the monster hit of the album, a four minute power pop masterpiece with a hugely memorable chorus / hook, guaranteed to get tens of thousands of people singing along at their shows until the end of the careers. Thrust into the spotlight with the comedic video starring the band (and Tenacious D) as pretty much everybody, this really is a perfect example of a great crossover rock record of the era, catchy melodies, an upbeat chorus, fun drum fills and that big chorus, it’s a big highlight. The track segues into Gimme Stitches, another great song from the album, again pushing that big chorus feel. Nate Mendel’s deserves praise for this track as well, as his bass lines have a real drive to them, not just sitting in the rhythm section, but pushing forward with some bass runs and flourishes similar to his work in Sunny Day Real Estate (and something that is missing from later Foos records). Unleashing his inner Peter Frampton, Grohl uses a talkbox to kick off Generator, another song in the same style as Stacked Actors, with a quieter verse rolling into a louder bridge / chorus, and with it’s lyrics of complicated love and relationship, it fits well with the next track, Aurora, with its overarching message that things can be better if they’re willing to work at it, which could be analogous to Grohl’s personal relationships, the band’s creative situation or the struggles they had dealt with with the revolving door of musicians at the beginning.
Unfortunately, this is where the album drops off a bit into mediocrity. Live-In Skin fits in that collection of interchangeable Foo Fighters album tracks where they all kind of sound the same. Next Year is a proper stinker, just a sickly sweet mid tempo snoozefest that even manages to make a false ending boring. Headwires is disjointed and tonally all over the place, just combining into a stinker of track about two steps away from the 80’s rock dross you’d get in a John Hughes film. Ain’t It The Life and MIA close the album and they just really do plod along into nothingness, seeming miles longer than their 4 minute run times, forcing the album into ending with a whimper rather than a bang.
In spite of this, the album is definitely worth picking up just for the first six songs, as they are all cracking.
In spite of this, the album is definitely worth picking up just for the first six songs, as they are all cracking.
1. The Colour and the Shape [1997]
BANGERS Rating: 0.923
Notable Tracks: Monkey Wrench, Hey Johnny Park!, My Poor Brain, Wind Up, My Hero, Enough Space, February Stars, Everlong, Walking After You
1997’s The Colour and the Shape is the Foo Fighters’ crowning glory. Tight, focused and bloat free, this is Dave Grohl and co at their finest. With the writing and performing down to just three individuals (Grohl, Smear and Mendel), after William Goldsmith quit the band mid recording due to having his drum parts re-recorded, there’s a drive and a clarity of vision on this record that is lacking in the majority of the later stuff. This is essentially the bands’ debut record, if you take into account that the first record was essentially just Grohl by himself recording a bunch of demos to find himself, and it is a corker. They’ve never sounded this energetic since, and probably never will again.
Kicking off with the short and sweet Doll, a sub-two minute intro track, much like T-Shirt from the latest album, it paves the way for them to rip into Monkey Wrench, a track intimately known by anyone that’s set foot in a rock club in the last 20 years. With it’s driving, relentless riff, infectiously singable chorus and that breathless, screaming outro, it’s a belter of a song and one of their undoubted highlights. Straight into Hey, Johnny Park!, which is another highlight of the record, the tempo has come down but the intensity has not. Grohl beats the absolute shit out of the drum kit here, probably his hardest drummed track since Scentless Apprentice, and the song, which can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, has a grandiosity far removed from that aforementioned first album.
Nate Mendel is the star of My Poor Brain, with that rolling bass line taking front and centre under the robotic alarm guitar of the verse, before a thumping chorus and a blazing final third - pretty much establishing the formula of what a successful Foo Fighters sing would entail for the remainder of their career to date. Wind Up is an angry, noisy punkier song than before, a callback to those first demos, and Pat Smear adds his signature crunch all over it, with the poppy hook of the chorus offset against the throaty screams of the verses. Up In Arms is a nice track of two halves, with a sombre slow first half leading into a power pop second half, again with Mendel killing it, and also being the only complete track to have William Goldsmith’s original drum tracks on, but it’s one of only a few that are not really essential. The anthemic My Hero is up next, the massive sounding ode to the ordinary working man, and and undeniable mainstream crossover, much like Best of You, popping up everywhere from TV shows and sporting events to charity singles and YouTube videos of rescues. It’s a bonafide classic of a song. See You is a jaunty little pop along, like a weird Beatles, with Grohl crooning over walking bass lines and naked percussion, which makes the crunching guitars and massive snare hits of Enough Space even wilder. It’s probably my favourite Foo Fighters drum track, a simple enough rhythm but an absolute smasher.
February Stars finds the band getting into big ballad territory without being cheesy, a raw track about barely hanging on which is relatable in any number of situations, before dropping into Everlong. Now, I don’t really need to write about Everlong, you know it, I know it, even your Nan knows it, it was even the wedding music in Friends. It’s their Hotel California, their Sweet Child O’Mine, their Bohemian bloody Rhapsody and it’s a fucking MASTERPIECE of modern rock songwriting. Walking After You completes this trilogy of emotional venting, a great song, but the re-recorded version from the X-Files soundtrack a year later (which ended up being the single version) is a full on banger. New Way Home closes the album out in familiarly bombastic style, hitting that mix of 70’s radio rock and 80’s punk that they regularly mine from, and whilst the song is a good one to close the album, it’s not really one you listen to in isolation.
The definite high point of the Foo Fighters discography, and something that will never probably be bettered, this is where Dave Grohl stepped out of the shadow of Nirvana and put his claim in as one of the most iconic figures in modern rock music. An essential record.
February Stars finds the band getting into big ballad territory without being cheesy, a raw track about barely hanging on which is relatable in any number of situations, before dropping into Everlong. Now, I don’t really need to write about Everlong, you know it, I know it, even your Nan knows it, it was even the wedding music in Friends. It’s their Hotel California, their Sweet Child O’Mine, their Bohemian bloody Rhapsody and it’s a fucking MASTERPIECE of modern rock songwriting. Walking After You completes this trilogy of emotional venting, a great song, but the re-recorded version from the X-Files soundtrack a year later (which ended up being the single version) is a full on banger. New Way Home closes the album out in familiarly bombastic style, hitting that mix of 70’s radio rock and 80’s punk that they regularly mine from, and whilst the song is a good one to close the album, it’s not really one you listen to in isolation.
The definite high point of the Foo Fighters discography, and something that will never probably be bettered, this is where Dave Grohl stepped out of the shadow of Nirvana and put his claim in as one of the most iconic figures in modern rock music. An essential record.
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So there we have it, all of the Foo Fighters albums ranked. Let me know in the comments or on social media @bangersmethod how you feel about it, did I get it wrong? Have I overlooked a gem of a song? If you want to send me your own scores, please do, you can find the template here, send them over to me at thebangersmethod@gmail.com and I’ll add them to the blog post.
All of the tracks mentioned as notable above have been compiled as a Spotify playlist (where available), and you can find that here too, and this is how the notable tracks are split across the bands discography.
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