As we all know, given its place in the history of music, Nirvana came to an abrupt and ignominious end. This had a major impact on a lot of people, but it was a particularly seismic change for the surviving members of the band, including Dave Grohl. In addition to losing his friend Kurt Cobain, he was suddenly a man without a country in the world of music. As one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, he could have hopped in to any band looking for someone to sit behind the kit, and in the intervening years he pretty much has. But he also had much loftier ambitions.
Thus, Foo Fighters was born.
Foo Fighters have suffered some critical blowback in their later years, but they remain incredibly beloved worldwide. Grohl, who stepped out from behind the drums to sing and play guitar, along with his revolving crew of bandmates have become rock gods, or at least demigods.
But this history of the Foo Fighters, the one that’s composed of arena domination and radio-friendly riffery, really only starts with their second album, 1997’s The Colour and the Shape. Like with film directors, sometimes early work gets left out of the canon. People think of Boogie Nights or Memento, as opposed to Hard Eight or Following. Similarly, the Foo Fighters self-titled debut, which came out 20 years ago Saturday, is the outlier that speaks of a very different direction the project could have gone in.
Foo Fighters is interesting for a lot of reasons. In my opinion, it’s the band’s best album. Although, in truth, what should be stated is that this is Grohl’s best album, because Foo Fighters were not a band yet. After spending a couple months feeling depressed and dispassionate about music following Cobain’s death, Grohl decided that getting back into the studio could be “some sort of cathartic therapy.” Armed with some demos and songs he had written while Nirvana was still an ongoing concern, Grohl and producer Barrett Jones went into the studio day in and day out for a week and churned out an album. Grohl played every instrument, save for one guitar part done by Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs, and did all the lead vocals. Grohl was, almost literally, a one-man band. When it was over, Grohl decided to slap the name Foo Fighters on it to give himself some anonymity.
Now, both Foo Fighters and Grohl are iconic names in the world of music. A lot has changed over 20 years, including Foo Fighters’ sound. Grohl’s stint in Nirvana, and his affinity for the “loud, quiet, loud” sound popularized by the likes of Pixies, is quite clear on Foo Fighters. The opening duo of “This is a Call” and “I’ll Stick Around” sound closer to Nirvana than the Foo Fighters we have come to know. They are also both really good. Grohl didn’t need to polish his sound to have success; this almost assuredly would have worked long-term for him too.
Throughout the album, there are hints of Foo Fighters as we now know them, as well as flirtations with other sounds (such as the jangly, poppy “Big Me”). It’s a rich listening experience; Grohl exorcising some demons and trying to find his own footing in the musical world. And we get to reap the rewards. Of course, so did Grohl, who started himself a whole new second act in his career with Foo Fighters.
Grohl would never make anything like Foo Fighters again, though, and he probably never will. The Colour and the Shape was a change of direction, one they have stuck with ever since. As rock elder statesmen, they probably can’t change now, either. Their fans expect “Everlong” and songs that sound like “Everlong,” which is fine — “Everlong” is a great song, and the band has many of them in their catalogue. But it’s also kind of a disappointment that Foo Fighters remains an outlier in their discography. There is something wonderful in this album, even if Grohl was just figuring it out as he went along.
