FOO FIGHTERS

Nice guys finish first. After years of having his up-beat poppy vaguely-alternative rock songs thrown back into his face by his contemptuous boss Dave Grohl benefited somewhat from Cobain putting something else into his own face and was finally able to move from behind the drum kit to full time front man. Obviously, I would not like to suggest Grohl was anything other than devastated at Kurt Cobain's senseless death but it was, sentimentality aside, a boon to his career and now, rather surprisingly, Grohl has managed to reap a level of riches that even Nirvana might have struggled to achieve with his inoffensive melodicism and parent-friendly post-grunge posteuring. Indeed, I am sure many people at the time Grohl formed the Foo Fighters (well, assumed the name, given the first album was written, played and recorded entirely by himself) correctly suggested that his career would fail to match the visceral genius of Nirvana's greatest works. What has proved perhaps more surprising, though, is the fact that the public have actually taken to Grohl and his material to such a level that they have eclipsed America's most important band to instead become one of America's biggest.

Perhaps it is not such a surprise, though, given that Grohl probably is one of his generation's most talented, if not exciting, songwriters. Few people would have predicted Nirvana contained two such talents but much of Grohl's material suggests he was certainly as equally melodic as Cobain, even if his desire to push the boundaries was rather more restrained. That is, of course, the crux of the problem with the Foo Fighters and the all-enveloping safety jacket that will ensure, good band though they are, they will never reach the level of true greatness. Grohl is great at knocking out inoffensive, catchy melodic rock but his lack of ambition means that he will probably never succeed to anything greater. Of course, this lack of aspiration may actually be a good thing. If Grohl abandoned his melodic sensibilities and went off to create his answer to Kid A one suspects the quality of his output would go down, not up. In other words, perhaps this lack of ambition instead qualifies only as sensible restraint. All the same, though, it means there will always be people who demand that Grohl stay behind the drum kit, given he is undoubtedly one of the best in the business. Personally, I think that would be to do a disservice to his ability as a songwriter and I am sure one day the Foos will release a multi-million selling Greatest Hits album (that will probably outsell Nirvana's). I cannot help but suspect, though, that it will turn out the best albums Grohl ever contributed to are Nirvana's Nevermind and Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf.

Although Grohl's period of mourning was not exactly epic it would be a little disrespectful to suggest he was busy arranging verses for this album in the funeral cortege. In fact, most of this material had been written whilst Grohl was tapping himself into frustration, supporting Cobain's increasingly disturbing material. Cobain was never the most selfless of band leaders and one suspects Grohl got rather short-shrift when offering, say, "Big Me" for inclusion amongst the ragged despair of In Utero. The sum of his creative contribution to Nirvana was a co-writing credit on "Scentless Apprentice" and one can assume that was not the end of his ambition. I of course have not read any Nirvana biographies (I might have come to love the music but I still despise the maudlin mystique that continues to shroud their legacy) but I suspect Grohl must have been considering a solo venture long before Cobain removed the need to make a decision. When Grohl emerged with his first album, though, he forced everyone to sit up and take notice. Although the grunge arrangements and moderately articulated anger had shades of Nirvana-lite about it in fact this album is simply a poppier rock album by a man with less desire to spit his dummy out on record. Indeed, the problem with this album is that for some of the numbers Grohl failed to really capitalise on his knack for delivering catchy melodies and, as a result, it can get bogged down with unmemorable grunge cliches. The most impressive number on the album is the two minute pop perfection of "Big Me". Whilst the likes of "Good Grief", "Weenie Beenie" and "Wattershed" sound like uninspired Cobain rip-offs "Big Me" stands out as, arguably, the best song Grohl has ever written and proof that, for all the disdain, he has always been a better pop song writer than Cobain. Of course, it is this problem that Grohl has wrestled with over the last decade, with his crisis-point being reached when the pleasantly melodic "Learn to Fly" became a smash hit at the turn of the century and Grohl desperately tried to reconcile his current state of benign inoffensiveness with his youthful dreams of rock'n'roll excess. Although he might have had second thoughts about the road he travelled down there is no doubt it was a more prosperous road than most of the alternatives. It is this album that is his most 'alternative' and, as a result, is often lauded by some commentators as his best, with his career deteriorating as his popularity increased. The fact is, though, that Grohl was simply not as accomplished a songwriter at the preliminary stage of his solo career and too many of the songs included here are deprived of his usual melodicism. Although it is a strong alternative rock album it is mostly the least alternative material that stands out most with "This Is a Call" and "For All the Cows" essentially being pop songs in a suitably rock-orientated framework. "I'll Stick Around" is a rare burst of Grohl's anger matching Cobain's intensity, though, with it being a wonderfully contemptful blast from one of rock's most likeable characters to one of its most dislikeable (ie. Courtney Love). Although intelligent arrangements has never been Grohl's forte the closing "Exhausted" does bring the album to an impressive close, with its weary crawl becoming ignited by a ferocious blast of grungey guitars. As such, this is at least one of the more ambitious of the Foos' albums but given Grohl's strength is as an uncomplicated songsmith the fact that he has yet to reach maturity ensures it falls into the lesser rank of his material. Nirvana fans who were in it for the songs, rather than the misery, were at least on to a good thing, though.

I don't think it would be that unfair to say that the Foo Fighters benefitted simply from releasing albums during the period that they did. The late nineties was a void of decent rock music, certainly within the mainstream, and I do not think it an exaggeration to suggest that the Foos might have struggled to be noticed a lot more if they were a band contemporaneous with Nirvana (ignoring the semantic difficulties). In any event, the Foos came of age with their sophomore release thanks largely to Grohl developing reassuringly quickly as a songwriter. His wife left him in the interim period between this release and their debut and it is this event, unsurprisingly, that Grohl concentrates on for the theme of the material. Thankfully, he has yet to reach his middle-of-the-road level of comfort exhibited on the next album and this therefore represents the peak of his artistry and will likely remain so unless he pulls something spectacular out of the bag in the future. It is also, thanks again to the fallow state of rock at the time, probably the best post-grunge rock album. Or the last great original grunge album. Or some sort of grunge-related honour anyway. In effect, the last hurrah of the old guard before the likes of the Strokes and White Stripes eked out a new future for rock. It is a little unfair but nonetheless unavoidable to make comparisons between Grohl and Cobain and in the spirit of such lazy journalism I feel duty bound to point out that this album effectively sounds like what Nirvana would have sounded like had Kurt Cobain been a happy, well-adjusted man with an affection for melodic classic rock. More so than on any other Foo Fighters release, there is an energy and enthusiasm (despite Grohl's miserable personal circumstances) that really makes this set list come alive. A lot of the songs are quite succinct and fly by in a jubilant burst of shouty up-tempo rock. None more so, of course, than the iconic "Monkey Wrench", which is an insanely high tempo hurricane of rock action which, unfortunately for me, became unavoidable in rock club circles for almost half a decade. There is no messing with its sheer exuberance, though, and when it raises a gear in the last verse all you can do is hold on to the seat of your pants. Despite the hi-octane rock'n'roll rush of much of the album the stand out moments usually come when Grohl slows things down, either with the ominous grunge classics "Hey, Johnny Park!", "Everlong" and "My Hero", or the ballads "Walking After You" and the climatic "February Stars". The latter sees Grohl flexing his rock muscles with pure power-ballad perfection whilst "Everlong" became as ubiquitous as "Monkey Wrench" thanks to its canny combination of singalong melody and traditional grunge dynamics. This album walked away with most end of the year awards back in '97 and even though the Foo Fighters got even bigger with the next release Grohl never again exhibited his pop sensibilities with such a refreshingly energetic approach to grunge. Not another Nirvana by any means but it is good to know Grohl was behind another flawed classic after In Utero.

The second might have been the best but it was the third that catapulted the Foo Fighters to global success and finally made a star out of Dave Grohl's everyman affability. Although this album is a tour de force of inoffensive melodic rock, falling perfectly in the gap between alternative rock and adult contemporary, it had Grohl facing a lot of long nights in front of the mirror (soul-searching rather than cocaine-sniffing, that is). Grohl came to loathe the hit single from the album, "Learn to Fly", with it making inoffensive melodic rock into an artform, and has spent the rest of his career to date somehow trying to escape its clutches. His immediate reaction was the Probot project for which he enlisted a score of classic heavy metal singers to try and appease his inner rock-loving child. I have not heard it but it probably best served as a way for Grohl to cleanse his system. However, once back in the Foo Fighters' fold Grohl has tried to make his work more edgy and artistic, with very mixed results. Certainly, if the release of this album represented a crossroads Grohl has double-backed on himself more than once. In any event, as the album that put him in this position you certainly could not say it was a poor effort. Indeed, this album is almost deserving of being the Foos' biggest selling release. It is overwhelmingly unambitious in its scope, with "Aurora" being the only track that exceeds pop song length, but it is also reassuringly melodic and, unfortunately for Grohl, triumphantly inoffensive. Grohl had, of course, been making music since 1989, not 1995, and this material very definitely finds him sounding his age. Of course, restraining one's ambitions to within one's scope is not always the worst thing to do and there are few prominent faults with the set list. The biggest misstep is the one attempt by Grohl to repeat his former glories with "Breakout" (itself quite a big hit) being a tame and obvious re-run of "Monkey Wrench". Indeed, despite Grohl's doubts, it is "Breakout" and not "Learn to Fly" that is the greatest sell out on the album. He does return to the angry dynamics of "I'll Stick Around" for the opening "Stacked Actors", which is another blast at Courtney Love ('just another ageing drag queen') delivered with the standard grunge template. It is the heaviest track on the album, though, and as a result at least one of the most memorable. "Generator" and "Aurora" are two of the best tracks but also the two closest to AOR (dig the Peter Frampton-esque talk-box on the former) and it is through Grohl's inherent melodicism that they are able to excel, rather than repel. At times this album actually comes rather close to sounding like late-era Police, "Headwires" in particular, with its focus on mature melodic rock. The highlight, though, is the downbeat "Ain't it the Life" which is a delightfully wistful acoustic number that, even, brings to mind the Beatles' more sensitive material. Any stronger comparisons with the Beatles would be well wide of the mark, however. Although this album, along with the more vibrant The Colour and the Shape, represents the peak of the Foo Fighters' inoffensive post-grunge melodic rock it is not hard to see why Grohl was not entirely happy with creating such a legacy for himself, particularly given the uber-cool credibility of his former band. It is not often that a search for credibility blights a career but the inconsistency of the succeeding albums suggest poor old Dave Grohl is best playing it safe, much to his own chagrin.

From: robertb@ com.netlaesr

I think "Gimmie Stitches" should be in the top 10.!! "Gimmie Stitches" is the best fucking song on the album. You should pull your head out of your ass. The song kickes seiuors fucking butt. I don't think what the record comp;should fix this truck and re play the song a litle more. a big kickass fan.

From: Jmerenivitch@aol.com

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....no that...can't be real...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!HAHAHAHA!
Idiot.

And so it was that the fourth album by the Foo Fighters, the long-awaited comeback after the commercial success of There Is Nothing Left to Lose, was hailed as a landmark release of their career, a triumph of intelligent and aggressive arrangements and a new peak for twenty-first century alternative rock music. As it is, critics were clearly getting it confused with ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's Source Tags & Codes, released a few months earlier, as there ain't nothing on this album that lives up to any of the above claims. In fact, this album came out sounding like a slightly less impressive imitation of Bon Jovi's Bounce, which is far more in keeping with the Foos' position as mainstream rock's most inoffensive champions. This album, far from being a superior, more ambitious successor to Nothing Left to Lose is just the same-old formula with less good songs on it. Indeed, Grohl's attempts to make his band more serious had simply resulted in the serious songs lacking the pop sensibilities that at least gave the Foo Fighters an excuse to exist. There are two exceptions, though, that somewhat rescue the album. "Times Like These" is a fine anthemic melodic rock song, easily up to the standard set on the previous album, with rousing lyrics, a nice descending hook for the chorus and a well-placed shouty crescendo to finish with. Similarly "Overdrive" is another really good melodic rock song with a lingering hook at the end of the chorus ("two strangers... on the mend"). Indeed, many of the lyrics on here are still dealing with break-ups, in particular "Have It All" and "Tired of You". The latter number is at least a break in pace on the album (although no song exceeds a restrained up-tempo), being in form a sensitive acoustic ballad complete with Brian May (The World's Most Overrated Guitarist) adding some atmospheric lead lines. Unfortunately the impact wears off before the song is half-way through and Grohl doesn't think to increase the tension or change the tempo of the song. Hardly what I'd call a wonderfully intelligent arrangement. Similarly nothing too clever is attempted for the likes of "Halo" and "Lonely As You" which are both decent enough songs, with decent enough Grohl-esque hooks, but scintillating alternative rock this ain't. The initial single release was album opener "All My Life" which, in contrast to the former two numbers, is a song that aims at some sort of ambitious, striking arrangment (with its "chugga-chugga" machine gun guitar riff). Whilst it serves to kick things off with something resembling a bang it ultimately fails to distance itself from Grohl's previous post-grunge posteuring, which was surely his intention. Following single "Low" is also one of the more intelligently arranged numbers, with the main guitar riff cleverly panning from left to right speaker, but the emptiness of Grohl's ambitions is laid bare with the 'epic' closer "Come Back" taking a long time to do something neither clever nor memorable. It is also indicative of the failings of this album. When Grohl just sticks to his blueprint the results remain pleasantly palatable but his burning desire to create something really important results in empty-headed arrangements that surely frustrate himself as much as the listener. Great artists reach for the stars so that even if they fall the results still make for compelling listening. Dave Grohl it seems, much as I sympathise, would be best served simply plodding on down the same old road.

After One By One failed to cement the Foo Fighters' artistic reputation Dave Grohl devised upon the idea of a double album and began telling anyone who would listen that In Your Honour would be the definitive artistic statement of the Foo Fighters. Grohl therefore covered his back by dividing the CD up into an obvious dichotomy with the loud shouty rock stuff on the first CD and the quiet, reflective acoustic ballads on the second. As a result, there is certainly plenty of material on offer but the only way in which this album is most typical of the Foo Fighters is in proving that Grohl is equally inoffensive in hard rock mode or as a singer-songwriter. Although, like all Foo Fighters albums, there is nothing that particularly stinks on here there is still nothing that really sets one's pulse racing. Certainly, despite Grohl's boasts, The Colour and the Shape remains the first port of call for anyone wishing to familiarise themselves with the Foos. With Grohl maturing as an artist and as a person there is unfortunately little if anything on here that matches the energy and enthusiasm which runs through his sophomore effort. That said, as with so many bloody double albums, there is enough to suggest that if the best songs from the 'loud' and the 'not so loud' side had been mixed together on one disc this release may have rivalled There Is Nothing Left to Lose in the pleasantly melodic post-grunge stakes. Both sides end up getting too immersed in the superficial sheen of the material, with the first degenerating into a shouty, distorted blur and the second floating away thanks to sparse arrangements and a lack of memorable vocal melodies. Contrary to most critics' opinions, it is the first side that I believe has more worth and if the two discs were to be combined I suggest it would be an uneven contribution, with a third of the second disc joining two thirds of the first. The opening title track proves to be a surprisingly anti-climatic opening with Grohl yet again evidently struggling to match his concept to his ability but the album kicks off thereafter with a rush of impassioned melodic rock. "No Way Back" immediately raises a gear from the cruise-control of One By One and the two initial singles, "Best of You" and "DOA", are vintage Foo Fighters (ie. good without being great) with the latter again recalling the mature melodic rock of the Police. Similarly, the rolling hook of "Resolve" reflects Grohl's fondness of classic rock. Indeed, apart from the forgettable "Hell" and "Free Me" the individual songs on the first CD make up a decent collection of up-tempo hard rock and it is more the pity that Grohl did not break them up a little with the better acoustic numbers, as by the end of the first CD the songs start to merge into each other and it becomes something of a chore to reach the end. Similarly, the acoustic side begins strongly with "What if I Do?" and "Miracle" being downbeat but melodic but it quickly transpires that they are two of the only acoustic tracks to actually have memorable hooks as the rest soon sinks into the background in a mist of sparse acoustic picking and Grohl's hushed vocals. The tempo is at least varied with Taylor Hawkins' laid-back "A Cold Day in the Sun" (more soft-rock than acoustic and all the better for it) and Grohl's dubious decision to duet with MOR queen Norah Jones on a samba tune, "Virginia Moon". It does rather hint at ensnaring the Starbucks crowd but the change in pace and mood is a welcome one and, as a duet, it is actually rather sweet. It is perhaps indicative, though, that the best cameo should come from Norah Jones, given the far more prodigious talents of Led Zep veteran John Paul Jones and Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme pass by unnoticed. Indeed, this whole project seems like a wasted opportunity given yet again Grohl's ambition to play with the big boys means he has taken enough material for a modest success and obscured it amongst a pile of inferior but similar-sounding songs. By the way, is it me or does drummer Taylor Hawkins becoming a frontman for the first time posit the rather neat idea of the rock equivalent of Russian dolls?

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