Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways
Today will mark the release of Foo Fighters 8th studio album Sonic Highways and it feels only right to give credit where credit is due. The Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl, have been a staple of the alternative/rock music industry for more than the past decade. Collectively, the band has won four Grammy’s for “Best Rock Album” as well as sold over 11 million copies worldwide. The hype of this new album is through the roof as it should be. The band isn’t hiding much, releasing singles and a track listing including all featured artists, yet it’s hard not to be anxious to hear the collaborative sound of this work.
I’m going to try and sum up my fan-girl feelings on Dave Grohl as eloquently as possible. If the music industry was porn and musicians were porn stars then Dave Grohl is Ron Jeremy and whatever instrument he’s wielding is his respective genitalia. Does that give enough insight as to what this man has brought to the music industry over the past twenty years? Yea, everyone knows, but it would be blasphemy to write a post about this band and their frontman and not mention that he was the drummer of Nirvana. Yes, Nirvana, like Kurt Cobain Nirvana.
Foo Fighters being the side project and secret love child of Nirvana’s drummer would seem to gain immediate fame based solely on the artist, but that was not Grohl’s intentions. After the death and Subsequent break up of Nirvana, Grohl took to the studio alone to record 15 out of 40-something songs he wrote while a member of Nirvana. Grohl played every instrument and recorded all the vocals only asking for help once by calling the guitarist of the Afghan Whigs. This 5 day studio session was put on cassettes and sent to friends of Grohl’s throughout the music industry purely for feedback. It was then that not only did he get feedback, but also widespread recognition in the industry. Naturally the next move was to put a band together in order to back the songs he had just recorded. He made it pretty easy on himself, recruiting artists from his area that had just split from their own band Sunny Day Real Estate.
We’re skipping around here a bit in order to save you from reading a Foo Fighters encyclopedia, but I’ll try to hit the important stuff. Members of the band have come and gone, left and rejoined, battled addiction, and been half-stolen from other artists, but Grohl has never left. Well, that’s also not TOTALLY true. Grohl has never actually left his post as frontman, but has done work with Queens of the Stone Age and other artists. Regardless of who has been in the band it is easy to say that they have never faded from the public eye. Whether Grohl was drumming for Nirvana or fronting FF, he’s made sure that everything he touches is gold. This album should just as expected and follow the same path as the rest of the work these guys have released. Even before buying the album or hearing a single note from any single just take a look at the track list. Featured artists include Ben Gibbard, Gary Clark Jr, and Joan Jett. The diversity as well as the talent that spans just those 3 of many featured artists is reason enough to go out and actually purchase this album. I know you’re not supposed to count your chickens before they hatch, but I think I would be a pretty stupid farmer if I didn’t expect Sonic Highways to be another golden egg from the Foo Fighters.