1272. Foo Fighters / There is Nothing Left to Lose. 1999. 4/5

Foo Fighters had approached the end of the 1990's decade with a high degree of success and adulation coming their way. After the debut self titled album, written and almost completely self recorded by Dave Grohl, had brought about a sense of a new dawn in alternative rock after the demise of Nirvana, and the follow up album "The Colour and the Shape", which had spawned several high charting singles and put the band firmly on the path to superstardom, there were still roadblocks to overcome. When guitarist Pat Smear had left the band halfway through the tour to promote "The Colour and the Shape", Grohl had brought in his mate Franz Stahl to replace him for the remainder of the tour. Stahl has made clear in interviews since, and on the documentary Back and Forth, that he already had ideas he wanted to bring to the band for their follow up album. Unfortunately for him, as was also presented in that same doco, Grohl felt that his style wasn't quite complementing what he wanted in the band, that it just didn't fit. This led to Grohl having to inform Stahl that he was fired from the band. At this point the band remained as a three piece, alongside drummer Taylor Hawkins and bass guitarist Nate Mendel. This would again leave Grohl to perform double duty on the album as he had done with the previous album, although that had been on drums and guitar, whereas here Hawkins would have his first recording effort with the band, while Grohl played all guitars on the album.
With just the three members, Grohl decided to convert the basement of his new home into a recording space, and the album was written and recorded there with little influence from the outside world. While there was an obvious amount of pressure on the band to create an album worthy of the two that had come beforehand, with the three members writing as a trio, as a group, rather than Grohl taking the full hands on approach, they were able to conceive and compose the music that the three of them wanted, and be in total control of the direction the new album was going to take. With this greater degree of collaboration, Foo Fighters were able to come out with an album they felt was ready to back up their success so far, with "There is Nothing Left to Lose".

While it would be accurate to suggest that the Foo Fighters first two albums had already shown a great variety in the style of songs that the band could write, and that they found a way to mesh and stretch the track list in order to have these songs meld together n the best way possible, it would also be a reasonable statement to suggest that it was with this album that they truly showed their template, the way they would continue down the path for the next decade. Listening to this album is a roller coaster ride in itself, such are the heights and lulls throughout, the thoughtful and introspective songs and the hard core driving tracks, moving between the loud to the sublime. While this is also true of the band's first two albums, here it feels as though it is a coordinated effort with less assault on the heavy side of the music and a more directed effort towards the softer and less aggressive music for most of the album.
The opening to the album is bombastic, with the crushing hard crashing drums and riffing guitars of "Stacked Actors" a terrific start. It feels like Dave has channelled his youth and come within a whisker of wanting to write a real hard core death metal track, and at times during the song you can feel the whole band just wanting to career over the falls and let loose... but don't. I love Dave's guitar sound on this track and his vocals leaving little behind. If anyone has hear Grohl's Probot project album, some of the songs on that remind me of this song and where it could have gone if he had truly wanted it to. A great start to the album. Then comes the song that made this album, "Breakout". The song was featured in the Jim Carrey movie "Me, Myself & Irene", and the film clip for the song shows parts of that movie. The film clip is a beauty and helped pushed the popularity of this song and the sales of this album. That scream... Wow Dave can really get that out there when he wants to. And the final song of the opening triumvirate is "Learn to Fly", another song whose film clip pushed its popularity enormously, and which is arguably better than the song itself. These three songs provide the impetus to the album from the start and well and truly has the party started by its conclusion.
That softer, more easy listening side of the album includes both some of the band's most accessible tracks, along with songs that would be unknown to those that only focus on the singles and radio released songs. "Gimme Stitches" is an example of the latter, a song that focuses on Grohl's sweeter harmony vocals and is a catchy song that is firmly settled in the mid-tempo track and unobtrusive guitar and drums. So too to a certain degree is the following track "Generator", talk box and all, but with verses that are softly sung and quiet guitar, coming out stronger through the bridge and chorus but certainly not in a way that anyone who doesn't enjoy hard rock would find offensive. And the final bout of the trio is the beautifully performed "Aurora", again highlighted by Grohl's amazingly credentials vocals over the lower action guitar sound throughout. "Aurora" is a song that shows a maturity in the music being presented by this trio, utilising the opposite side of their musical roots to produce a track that few would have thought possible given the heritage. It ranks alongside "February Stars" as one of the band's crowing achievements in this alternate part of their musical universe.
"Live-In Skin" holds its own throughout with a steady tempo and strumming guitar. More of the same comes at you with "Next Year", the final single released from the album. It is the only one of these softer sided songs that got a single release, which suggests that the band knew that its base was the fans that wanted the harder rocking tracks, and they were the ones who would get pulled into the album from the singles, but that once in, perhaps these songs would present an option to their partners, or family to give them an entry point to the band as well. "Headwires" follows a similar approach to "Live-In Skin", which is followed by "Ain't it the Life" which comes off the same conveyor belt that "Next Year" was produced from. There's a real country twang in the guitars on "Ain't it the Life" which is surprisingly serene, and almost Eagles-ish. "M.I.A" again follows a path from "Headwires", the main difference being that Taylor does actually hit his drums with a bit of effort again during this track, giving the album closer a little more impetus the bring it all to a conclusion.

Listening to this album now and it becomes obvious that the straight down the line rock songs punctuated with less aggressive vocals or guitars are what actually dominate the album. The opening tracks drag you in, and the preceding tracks lull you into a sublime state of calm, which is not anything that I would have expected a Foo Fighters album to do to me when I first bought this album. And listening to this again, it really is quite a massive change that the band had made here compared to those opening two albums. It just never seemed so sudden. For a long time I was always of the belief that this change came with the albums of the mid 2000's, but having had this on again for the past 2-3 weeks, I finally myself standing corrected. It was this album that saw the savage directional change occur. Now that may have been from a collaborative writing partnership, or it may just have been the plan, to release the hard to heavy songs at the top of the track list to appease their fans, ad then travel to another part of the music appreciation society with the back two thirds of the album. Away from this, I still love this album. Sure the songs have less aggression, but they are beautifully written and performed by all three members. It is Dave Grohl's vocals that probably win the day, because anyone who can sing "Breakout" and "Ain't it the Life" on the same album has some talent.
I bought this album reasonably close to its release date, as by this time my work situation was beginning to change and I was getting to a point where I could actually buy music again. And it was another of those albums at that time where I was expecting a lot, and vey much wanted to hear an album that was exactly like the previous one. And this definitely not that. And... I must have known at the time that the mood of this album had changed, because although I listened to it I know I was rarely invested in the second half of the album. Not for a long time anyway. At the time I thought it was because I wanted "The Colour and the Shape Part 2" and as discussed this isn't that. But over time I found enjoyment in it all, even if it wasn't the harder material I would have liked. And "There is Nothing Left to Lose" ticks all of the boxes asked of it. As the next step in the bands progression this album does exactly what it set out to do.
There never seems to be a time in the Foo Fighters camp where there isn't some sort of problem or shift going on. Recent times have proven that all over again. The recruitment of guitarist Chris Shiflett before the tour to promote this album at least showed that loud guitar rock was still a part of the band's future, as did the reappearance of Pat Smear not long after. And the rocketing rise of their popularity was only increased with the release of this album.