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.

992. Foo Fighters / Run [Single]. 2017. 4/5

So, 20-odd years on from Foo Fighters entering the music scene, what can we surmise from the release of this single. Is this a taste of what is to come from the next album, that is in the process of being recorded and for which a release may well be imminent? Or is this a one-off single, taking advantage of their schedule to remind everyone that they are still out there and working together?

Whatever is the case, it is an interesting single. In many ways it harks back to Dave’s early influences. It starts off in a quiet fashion, before Taylor’s drums jump in, followed by some very punk rock oriented guitar, and even more fashionably those famed screaming vocals from Dave himself that haven’t appeared as often in recent times. Can you, like me, hear bits and pieces of that old Seattle sound in there? Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden. I can hear them all. The fact that this tends to hail back to those grunge and punk roots more than the hard rock and even soft rock that has been the staple of recent years is interesting to me because I admit I would like to hear an album based around this kind of writing and performing. I don’t believe we’ll get it, but I know that Taylor is hitting those drums and cymbals bloody hard, and the three guitars distorted riffing together with Nate’s familiar bass line running underneath beautifully also mix well with the keyboards that are beginning to find their way into the band’s music.

Is Dave writing a metal/punk Foo Fighters album? Again, I’m guessing not. But this song is an enjoyable thought in the process.

549. Foo Fighters / In Your Honor. 2005. 1.5/5

Having just praised the coming of Foo Fighters in my previous review (for Nirvana's In Utero) I now have to backtrack a little and try to understand how this album came together, and the purpose it serves.
OK, so we have a double disc release here, and the early reports did inform (warn) me that the first disc would be the 'rock' album, while the second disc would be a quieter reflection on things. No problem. It's the Foo Fighters, right? How bad could it really be?

Well, 'Album 1' has some reasonably worthwhile tunes on it. Not a solid album overall, but enough there to make you think there is something worth salvaging from the slight wreck.
...and then comes 'Album 2'. Why? What?! Really?!? Look, I'm sure this does cater to some people's tastes, and to those people go my sympathies. Perhaps a more important question is probably - did this band really have this inside them? Was it just a means to release this stuff from their systems? It's not as if they can't write decent ballad-type songs - "February Stars" is probably the finest example of this - but this is just boring, dreary and uninteresting.
Is this by the same man who came up with his concept for the Probot album? Did that album drain all sense of hard rock and metal from his veins? Seriously!!?! I cannot begin to conceive just what was going on here.

Unfortunately this was, and is, a huuuuuuge disappointment. Putting myself through the agony o listening to it all once again over the last couple of days should be penance enough for any wrongs I've done over the past 12 months.

Rating: Completely illogical. 1.5/5

396. Foo Fighters / Foo Fighters. 1995. 4.5/5

On April 8, 1994, many people’s perspective of the world changed. This was the day that police discovered the body of Nirvana lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain in his home, having fatally shot himself three days earlier. It brought about a worldwide state of mourning for a man whose troubled existence had brought love and happiness to millions through his music, even if he couldn’t find that state himself. One of the people most directly affected by this was Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, who not only lost his bandmate and friend on that day, but also a direction and focus of his life. Unsurprisingly he fell into a state of depression following this, and questioned whether he wanted to continue a career in music or whether it was time to ‘find a real job’.
Prior to Nirvana's 1994 European tour, the band had scheduled studio time to work on demos. Cobain was absent for most of that time, so Krist Novoselic and Grohl worked on demos of their own songs. They completed several of Grohl's songs, names of which included "Exhausted", "Big Me", "February Stars", and "Butterflies". At other times during his time with Nirvana, Grohl had booked studio time on his own in order to lay down demos of songs that he was composing, given the lack of output in this regard in his time with Nirvana. Once he had gotten his head back into the game, he spent six days at the same recording studio, Robert Lang Studios, and completely recorded 15 songs, on which he played all instruments and sang on all of the songs. Despite this, he still was unsure if he wanted to start a band, or just be a member of another band. In November of that year he went on tour as drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as a fill-in, after which he was offered a permanent spot in the band, which he refused. There were other offers out there as well but Grohl was still unsure exactly what he wanted to do. He had begun to pass around cassettes of his songs that he had recorded in October of 1994 to friends for feedback on what he had produced. The news of these tapes moved swiftly through the music industry, and soon enough created enough interest for record labels to become interested. He eventually signed a deal with Capitol Records, and the songs were remastered for eventual release. However, Grohl was insistent that it should not be seen to be a solo project. He wanted this to be a band project, even though for this initial album it would only be him that actually played on it. So he brought together musicians that he felt would be suitable for the purposes of acting as the first to tour and support the album, those being bass guitarist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith of the recently disbanded band Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist, and former Germs member, Pat Smear. And though none appeared on that first album, they were to become an important part of the band that became known as Foo Fighters.

Of the 12 songs that finished up on the final version of the album, only four of them were composed after Kurt Cobain’s death. Eight of the songs had been composed and recorded as demos while Nirvana was still a going concern. And there are certain differences between the songs that Grohl wrote while in Nirvana, and those he wrote as a consequence of its demise.
The opening tracks here are furious, angry, spitting, taking on the post-Nirvana critical mass. The world had changed for Dave, and that comes across in the writing especially, but also in how hard he is playing and singing the songs. “This is a Call” evokes a call back, a look back to his past and a decision on how to spend his time in the future. He was quoted in Kerrang! Magazine saying: "'This Is A Call' just seemed like a nice way to open the album, y'know, 'This is a call to all my past resignations...' I felt like I had nothing to lose, and I didn't necessarily want to be the drummer of Nirvana for the rest of my life without Nirvana. I thought I should try something I'd never done before and I'd never stood up in front of a band and been the lead singer, which was fucking horrifying and still is!” This is followed by the classic “I’ll Stick Around”, where frustration rises to the surface in his lyrics and in the music, the harder hit drums, the heavy guitar riff. All of it combines into the first instance where we hear Dave utilise his aggressive passionate vocals, driving the song into both a fury and yet consequentially a question lyrically. For years Grohl denied the song was about his relationship with Courtney Love post-Nirvana, but in more recent years has openly admitted that it is. I don’t think that surprised anyone.
Of the songs here that comprise those earlier tracks, the style has a calmness and yet effective hard rock tone about them. While there appears to be no effort put in to be attractive to any one genre of fans, or even to appeal to all fans of all genres, to then drag them into the album through several songs and hope that they enjoy the entirety of it all, it still has that feel about it. In the long run this is just a whole bunch of songs that Grohl write over a period of a few years, not trying to create and album with a direction about it, just recording songs as they came to him to create. And that is both the beauty and the curse of the album. It attracts as many fans as it disappoints BECAUSE of its slightly haphazard songwriting.
For instance, take “Big Me”, which Grohl has always admitted was just an out and out love song for his then wife, and elsewhere suggested it was about "Girl meets boy, boy falls in love, girl tells him to fuck off!" It is, in many ways, reasonably lame, only gathering fans through the amusing film clip that the band made for it in The Rocks in Sydney. The same came be said for most of “Alone + Easy Target”, the clear guitar and sweet styled vocals for most of the song give it a similar feeling to “Big Me”, though the added distorted guitar in the chorus picks it up into a slighter better character.
When you listen to songs such as “X-Static” and “Exhausted”, they were either drawing on the template for what became alternative rock and metal in this period of music, or it was at the very forefront of that period of music. The phasing fuzzy guitars underneath, the melancholic lyrics in that meandering mournful tone, all while sitting in a mid-tempo range that feels like it is never really getting anywhere in a hurry, but doesn’t sound as though it is overstaying its welcome, or taking up time from moving on to the next track. They stand as a bridge between the love sick depressing halting tracks of the era and the extension into a faster based angrier tone of track. The fact that “X-Static” was written post Nirvana, and “Exhausted” was written during Nirvana makes for an interesting comparison of the two era of Grohl’s writing and composing. Separating these two songs at the end of the album is “Wattershed” which is Dave’s tribute to his time coming up in the hard core scenes, especially playing in the band Scream, and this has the most hard and punk tones of any song on the album.
The middle of the album combines these styles intricately. “Good Grief” is a mid-range alt-rock song with a the right tempo to get people moving in concert or in clubs. “Floaty” performs in the same misjoinder throughout, Grohl’s higher clear vocals and guitar dominating the track, at least again at the tempo that makes it likeable and not unlovable. “Oh George” has been quoted by Grohl himself as his least favourite song of his with the band. Complying with the same style of clear guitar and vocals, only mutating from that later in the track, it suits the style that the majority of this album resides in. The last of these tracks is “For All the Cows”, that moves from the clear and happy pronunciations to a hard and heavier thrash on the guitar and drums in between these sections.
On the other hand, “Weenie Beenie” comes at you with that fuzzy guitar and drums attack, Grohl’s vocal effects singing sounding like he means something on this track, pushing harder and more in the style of the hard core he had grown up loving and playing.
Lyrically, this album isn’t offering a great deal. Outside of a couple of songs here, there is a lot of nonsense being sprayed about, which Grohl admits was his style at the time, just coming up with words 20 minutes before recording the track. That changed from the next album onwards, when there was a far more regimented and patterned effort in writing and recording songs that mattered in a band sense.

I would guess that my discovery of the Foo Fighters would be no different from anyone else of my generation who had any clue as to who Nirvana had been. Which, surely, was just about everyone growing up in the 1990’s. The passing of Cobain, while sad, was not ground shattering for anyone who had followed his work and career to that point, nor was the fact that Nirvana also folded at that moment. And I’m sure I hadn’t been the only one to wonder what might happen to Krist, Pat and Dave now that that era was over. So once it was announced that ‘the drummer from Nirvana’ was putting out his own album, it was one that had to be immediately tracked down. Even if the name of the band and the album, Foo Fighters, sounded more like it should have been on The X Files (which was at the height of its popularity at the time) than an album or band name.
At the time I was living with two of my best mates in Carlingford in the western suburbs of Sydney, in the desolate year of 1995. But it was an exciting time when I got the CD and brought it home for our first communal listen. And it is fair to say that it got us in from the start. Those two powerhouse opening tracks broke in the album perfectly, and from there we were hooked. It became an album that was often played when we were home when we weren’t watching The X Files and Melrose Place, and it is fair to say that the Foo Fighters were a hit. On New Years Eve that year, both of these mates were at Macquarie University to see a gig headlines by the Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth, with Foo Fighters playing a 12 song set before them, the band’s first tour of Australia, and one they have never stopped talking about. No. I wasn’t there. That’s another story.
Having listened to this album upwards of a dozen times again over the past week, I still understand why there was the hype about this album on its release. When it came to critically reviewing it for this episode, I can also see why there are other people out there who aren’t exactly in love with what it offers. It’s one person, doing all the writing and all of the recording. If there had been a critical eye and ear of other bandmates present, and their appearance on instruments for the album, perhaps it would be tighter and better. But also, maybe not. It still needs to be stated, even though it is obvious, that this ‘album’ is more or less a collected works of demo songs written over a period of several years, thrust together to be collated for a debut album of a band that didn’t exist until it came time to release the album. Even though Grohl wanted this to be a band and not a solo project – something I admire and agree with – there i no getting past the fact that for this album at least, there is just the one operative in places. There is no distinct style of a band, it is several genre platforms utilised depending on what mood the writer had been in at the time. And as much fun and as enjoyable as this album is, there is absolutely no denying that the follow up sophomore effort is leaps and bounds better than this. In every conceivable way. But don’t let all of that talk you out of enjoying this album. Because 30 years later it still has plenty of cracking moments on it.

363. Foo Fighters / Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. 2007. 2/5

Following In Your Honour I went into this album without any hopes whatsoever. I didn’t run around excited to hear the new album, nor did I allow my expectations to get the better of me. Whether this was the right thing to do or not I don’t know, but when it finally arrived… I found it was no better than I expected.

I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who think this is great, but to me it is a long way from their best stuff. Where has the aggression gone? What have they done with the passion? I read somewhere where someone had said it was as close to the music of Nirvana that Dave Grohl has done. WTF is up with that?!?!
The single that was released from this album, “The Pretender”, is the one song on the album that would nearly make a best-of combination. In reality, it is a complete misrepresentation to the public as to the kind of album this is.

Never mind. You can’t always have what you want. Perhaps they have just drained all of their best stuff, and now they are heading down the road of ‘easy-listening’. If that’s the case, I really can’t see myself investing in their future releases.

Rating: In almost all respects, just not the kind of album I like, nor was looking for. 2/5.

177. Foo Fighters / The Colour And The Shape. 1997. 5/5.

The Foo Fighters eponymous debut album was, as most of you will know, almost completely recorded by Dave Grohl himself, and though released as the band’s first album, the band at that time didn’t actually exist. That’s why when it came to writing and recording the next album, “The Colour and the Shape”, that the band considered it to be their first album. The band, with Pat Smear on guitar, Nate Mendel on bass and William Goldsmith on drums, had been on tour for some time which had allowed them to become close and find their groove together. When they first entered the studio to write and record however, things didn’t go according to plan. They spent four weeks recording and re-recording the songs they had written, and by the time they took a break over Christmas, Grohl’s overwhelming disappointment in the tracks was obvious. In fact, it was more than that, as it turned out.
The band relocated to Hollywood two months later, though without drummer William Goldsmith, who was told he wouldn’t be required at that time. It is very much worth watching the Foo Fighters documentary “Back and Forth” to see the full story play out, but in essence, Dave went through song by song and re-recorded all of the drum tracks on the album without telling William what he was doing. Now, that’s a dick move, even for the drummer of Nirvana. Grohl’s explanation is understandable to a point, that he felt William just didn’t have the song the way he wanted it, and that’s hard to argue. But maybe telling him from the outset that he needed to have the songs sound the way he wanted them would have been the best way to go about it. In the end it was Nate who told William what had been going on, and the eventual conversation saw Dave saying he still wanted William to be the touring drummer but that he wouldn’t be playing on the album, and William deciding that if that was the case he didn’t want to be in the band anymore. Tense times.
This wasn’t the band’s only problem. Not only were they going overtime in delivering the album to the record company, they were also well over budget because of the time spent in the studio getting everything to their standard. The pressure was being applied, and with the drama going on around them there must have been times when the embers wondered if they would be able to complete the project with any sort of success.

One of the big differences on this album from the first album was that there was a lot of inward reflection when it came to the lyric writing for this album - but my intention here is not to go through each track and recount what each song is about. That has been done elsewhere, and if you are interested in that then it is worth checking out. Some people are intuitively interested in each nuance of each lyric of a band, and others only care about listening to them and singing along with them. Suffice to say that Dave has said that it reflects a psych analysts' session, and that he used to songs in that manner to look inside and purge the things he was feeling at the time. It seems fair to say that the subject matter of the songs here is deeper and more meaningful than much of the lyrics from the debut.
The songs though have a similar but more mature sound as those on the first album. The Foo Fighters have an amazing knack of being able to mix quiet periods with clear guitars in their songs in bursting them up with distortion and screams without destroying the essence of the song or turning anyone off the music. This was apparent on the previous album, but comes further into the case here on “The Colour and the Shape”. There are songs that do stay in the quieter sphere for the majority of the track, and others that stay in the aggressiveness for most of the track, but many who combine parts of both.
“February Stars” is a triumph, though as much as I am able to admire the song itself it is one I will never listen to unless I am actually listening to the album itself. But its place on the album is unquestioned and is a centre piece of how the band’s writing had developed since the previous album. The quiet songs find their place nicely in the track list, songs such as “See You” and “Walking After You”, and the slow burn build of the final track “New Way Home” which goes from the quiet and reflective to the hard core departure at the end, a great way to complete the album.
Then you have the heavy punk like opening of “Monkey Wrench”, the first song off the album, and one which gets the joint jumping from the outset. Dave’s vocal qualities combine at their best here with the hard rocking guitars, especially his great chant come scream through the back half of the track. It’s a beauty, and a great song to boot. This is followed by “Hey, Johnny Park!” which remains in my top five Foo Fighters songs. Apart from “Everlong”, I still think this is the perfect song to play that encompasses everything that is great about the band. The great drum and riff opening to the song, the lull into the clear guitar and wonderful vocal qualities of Dave, and the ability of the song to morph from the quiet and reflective to the harder more energetic qualities of the band’s music. This song has everything that makes the Foo Fighters who they are, and I never get tired of listening to it.
How about the three songs that follow, with “My Poor Brain” that is almost Nirvana-like with how hard Dave is hitting the drums and riding high on the chorus. Then “Wind Up” which Dave really gets into his work on the vocals between his harder side and into the screaming side. And finally “Up in Arms” that goes from the slow and quiet into the fast and frantic. Great stuff. I love the way this song builds into itself and then seems to get faster all the way through. Brilliant. Then we have “My Hero”, a song that has been used in any number of movies and ads and campaigns over the years since as the catchphrase to any hero that is needed to be categorised as such. It has been one of the bands most popular songs throughout their years, and while I like it, it does rate anywhere near that high for me in regards to their great songs. And there is more of the punk attitude in the hard hitting and screaming of “Enough Space”
It is a testament to the band that they are able to write and perform such an amazing range of songs without seeming to turn off their fans. Being able to mix “Monkey Wrench” and “February Stars” on the same album without backlash is quite a monumental achievement. Being able to go from the loud and raucous “Enough Space” into the quiet and babbling brook like tones of “February Stars” and then into the spine tingling magnificence of “Everlong” without even making the listener question what is going on is a mark of genius.
I don’t think it would be too bold a statement to suggest that “Everlong” is the best song that has been written in any genre of music in the last 25 years. It is the perfect song in regards to Foo Fighters linking their past and their future. It combines all of the pent up and built up aggression and energy of Grohl’s early music and the first album, and the reflective way the band has evolved in their song writing on this album. The emotion from the very beginning of the track seeps the whole way through, and Dave’s vocals are just perfect throughout. But for me, it is the drumming that is the understated star of the track, from the initial 16/4 timing through to the mixed drum fills prior to the chorus beginning and then the whole nuance of their presence in the entire song. For me they make this song as great as it is. And I encourage everyone to concentrate on just the drums the next time you listen to the song, just to see if you can understand what I mean... like... right now.

I bought the debut album the week it came out, and loved it from the start. It had the kind of energy and fun that, at that time of my life, I not only wanted but needed. I also bought this album in the first week it was released. I remember catching the train home from Utopia Records to Erskineville, and going inside and immediately putting the CD on my stereo. By now I’d heard the single “Monkey Wrench”, so it was what followed it that interested me. And I wasn’t disappointed, as such. Those slower songs threw me for a loop on the first few listens, and the more raucous songs intrigued me. Eventually it was having the album on a loop in my car on the way to and on the way home from work for a couple of weeks that dragged me in and gave me the chance to take it all the pieces of “The Colour and the Shape”. Because, as has been confirmed by the band in the years since, the design of the songs, and where they fit on the album and how they connect to those songs around them, is a deliberate piece of art. And after a while you can hear that, and understand the pattern as it is pieced together.
And I played this album to death at the time it was released. It appealed to everyone – family, friends, customers at work, passers-by on the road as I drove along. It was, and is, an album that I could put on and would be met by approval from most of the people in the vicinity. And that is probably its greatest asset. People know Nirvana when you put it on, but it isn’t universally loved. My kids generally wonder what I see in it sometimes. But in the main everyone knows and enjoys Foo Fighters and especially this album.
I was fortunate enough to see the band on the tour following this album, and a great concert it was. We saw newly instated drummer Taylor Hawkins, who smashed up the night... apart from “Everlong”, which he seemed to want to play too fast and he didn’t get quite right. It was the only time I ever saw him stuff up on the kit, and though he didn’t actually play on this album, it was still the first thing I went to on the news of his sad passing. Even at this point, this was a band that was still building, with the pieces of the band still being put together, and they weren’t the finished product just yet. But this remains my favourite album by the band, with songs that still reverberate through time, that are as important today as they were on the day this was released all those years ago.