The Colour And The Shape (©1997 Roswell / RCA)

1: Doll 2: Monkey Wrench 3: Hey, Johnny Park! 4: My Poor Brain 5: Wind Up 6: Up In Arms 7: My Hero 8: See You 9: Enough Space 10: February Stars 11: Everlong 12: Walking After You 13: New Way Home

Well, it was bound to happen. I’ve been listening to a lot of Foo Fighters music lately. I never should have picked up anything by these guys. Oh well, my collection is now complete (I guess it's obvious that I didn't by their stuff in chronological order).

Dave is an interesting songwriter – he’s got one foot in pop land, the other in alt land. I’d call it grunge or punk, but I’m not sure which label is “in” nowadays. When the lads are good they’re freakin’ monsters. Witness the aural assault of "Monkey Wrench". Wicked. Then there’s the pop brilliance of "Everlong". Of course, Dave can scream like an idiot too (I couldn’t think of any decent similes, idiot in this case is supposed to be compliment). These are the ones that got the airplay, but there are more solid tunes throughout. "Walking After You", is a really good song, among others. I hate lists something always gets left off. If you have this album make up your own bloody list, why should I do your work for you?

I don’t think these guy’s will ever be my favourite band, but they’re not at the bottom of the pile either. They do manage to cover a lot of music ground, and in my books that's pretty cool (is cool still cool to use?)

Reviewed October 29, 2003

There Is Nothing Left To Lose (©1999 RCA)

1: Stacked Actors 2: Breakout 3: Learn To Fly 4: Gimme Stitches 5: Generator 6: Aurora 7: Live-In Skin 8: Next Year 9: Headwires 10: Ain't It The Life 11: M.I.A.

There’s something undeniably appealing about Dave Grohl. He always reminds me of a great big goofy kid who knows he’s having more fun than should be allowed, and keeps going because at any moment the bubble could pop.

Hard to imagine that this is the guy that sat on the riser and anchored Nirvana. Who’d a thunk that little old Dave would emerge from the ashes and rock my world in a way Nirvana never did. Speaking personally, I always thought Nirvana was okay, but I don’t have any of their albums. But then, I didn’t have any Foo Fighters stuff until the other day either. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the songs I heard on the radio.

I like this one, and there are some great songs here. I’m a sucker for punchy crunchy pop music. Dave likes to dress up some pretty dark stuff in happy fun music, which is a riot. "Learn to Fly" is a killer song, and got a lot of radio play for good reason. I can’t believe it’s been a few years already since this one came out. When did time start speeding up?

Of course now that I’ve had my taste of Foo, I’ll no doubt go back and pick up the rest of their stuff. So what if all their stuff sounds more or less the same? It’s different enough for me; but try telling my wife that.

Rock on Dave, rock on, and keep grinning - no one’s popped the bubble yet.

Reviewed September 11, 2003

One by One (©2002 Roswell / RCA)

1: All My Life 2: Low 3: Have It All 4: Times Like These 5: Disenchanted Lullaby 6: Tired Of You 7: Halo 8: Lonely As You 9: Overdrive 10: Burn Away 11: Come Back

So this is what you get when you pound out the highs and bring up the lows. All of the other pieces of Foo have had some wicked ass great songs, and a bunch of good songs, but for whatever reason they never hit a level of overall consistency that blew me away. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a bunch of killer songs, it’s just that there are so many of them this time out. Dave and gang deserve a great big beer. "All My Life", "Times Like These", "Tired of You", "Halo" ... you get the picture? Want more, read the song list. This is a really good record. Why not five stars? I said it was really good didn’t I? If you want to see five star sycophant reviews read drop by Amazon.com.

Dave still screams himself hoarse in places, and in others sings like a choirboy. He also enlists the help of the grand old school too in the Brian May, who lends some very nice understated guitar work to "Tired of You". You know, I’ll give this an extra half star. I’ve been listening to this at work for almost eight hours straight, and I’m not bored yet.

I guess you could say I’ve become a fan. Just what I need, another band to follow. One day I hope to start getting free stuff, this buying everything I like is killing my cheque book. Hey Dave, how about some free stuff?

Dave?

Anyone else feeling like Hal out there? Well, it was either that or Tommy Chong.

Reviewed October 30, 2003

In Your Honor (©2005)

Disc One: 1. In Your Honor 2. No Way Back 3. Best of You 4. DOA 5. Hell 6. The Last Song 7. Free Me 8. Resolve 9. The Deepest Blues Are Black 10. End Over End

Disc Two: 1. Still 2. What If I Do? 3. Miracle 4. Another Round 5. Friend of a Friend 6. Over and Out 7. On the Mend 8. Virginia Moon 9. Cold Day in the Sun 10. Razor

Before I start I didn't pick this up for years because of the "Copy Protection" issue. It really pissed me off, and I wonder what the backlash to the band was - it was probably a pain for Dave and company, but life goes on. Besides there are ways around everything ...

However, I'm not about to go into a "fair use" rant, this is about the content - at the risk of rehashing the obvious In Your Honor is a two disc affair. Disc one being the raw foo, and disc two being soft foo. Essentially this is a foo foo album. The first disc is surprisingly solid - I was expecting it to be a muddy and sludge filled effort. But instead it I got a bunch of strong pop rock songs. Heck, the band even does a better than passing impression of Cheap Trick on "Resolve". Over the last couple of years I've read a lot of comments about the splitting of the sweet and sour elements of the foo sound, like Captain Kirk in that classic episode The Enemy Within one could not live without the other. I'd disagree - if that was the case, disc one would be a pretty harsh affair with little or no melody. I suppose it was just a clever conceit to try and put the boys in a box - but if there's a constant about Foo Fighters over the last few years it's that these guys scream or sing depending on their mood.

But the real treat here is the second disc of acoustic oriented songs. The striped down nature of the music reveals the strength and warmth of the band. The songs are still full of life - it's just that you can hear what's going on without the accompanying wall of noise.

While there are still those who will dismiss this as so much twaddle, there are others like me who continue to get a kick out of The Foo Fighters, and look forward to seeing what the band will bring to the table.

Reviewed January 18, 2008