Tomorrow, the new Foo Fighters album, Midnight remedy, It will be released. On the other hand, you probably already know if this is of interest to you or not: The Foo Fighters aren’t exactly the most soundly or stylistically adventurous band on the planet, so if you’ve historically liked your particular brand of hard rock infused pop, there’s a good chance that you are curious to try the new one. On the other hand, this is not exactly the same collection of music that you would normally expect from the band. This divergence of sound becomes known right away; after the opening track “Making A Fire” features a fast-paced drum pattern, followed by a riff typically inspired by classic rock, the change comes abruptly – a chorus of “Nah nah na-na-na-na nahh!” voices erupt during the song, leading the casual listener to wonder if they may have accidentally played Queen at the end of the period. One by One Part II, That is not.
The rest of the record follows suit. Here, a barnburner Motörhead-meets-Meat Loaf with coral arrangements in the background (“No Son Of Mine”); there, an acoustic ballad at the level of Captain And Tennille (“Chasing Birds”). There is still an occasional old school Foo Fighters track (“Waiting On A War”, “Holding Poison”), but even these were generously fermented with new levels of 80s rock synthesizers and flourishes. It didn’t come out of nowhere: o group record in 2017, Concrete and gold, began to push provisionally in that direction. Still, it is enough to make a Foo Fighters fan stop, take stock of the group and ask themselves if this is a band they are interested in continuing to follow. Two AV Club employees, assistant editor Alex McLevy and editorial coordinator Gwen Ihnat, are longtime listeners to Dave Grohl and company; they had remarkably different reactions to Midnight remedy, and decided to sit down and discuss their opposing views to determine what, if anything, this new album has to offer.
Gwen Ihnat: I will never give up Foo Fighters: My love for the first two albums still knows no limits (I would put Color and shape tomorrow) and they gave me some of the best live show experiences – yes, even in the rock arena– I’ve had. In fact, it is the opening bands (Naked Raygun, Cheap Trick) and the live covers (“Under Pressure”, “Miss You”, “School’s Out”) that indicate the unbreakable bond between Dave Grohl and fans like me: all we grew up on the same classic rock radio. The band never gets better than when Dave and company simply immerse themselves in that blatant love for rock ‘n’ roll from the bell era.
So, I was disappointed when the Foos released their new song “Shame Shame” on your recent Saturday night love appearance. No sooner was a drowsier song released; when people say that Foo Fighters has no new sound to offer, this track, so sleepwalking that it really seems to be running backwards, is exactly what they are talking about. It’s not the worst song Midnight remedy (this would be the execrably schmaltzy “Chasing Birds”, which targeted the “Walking After You” territory and failed miserably). But as “Shame” was the first song I heard, I covered the rest of these new MAM songs tenuously – and I was very surprised (and relieved). Kickoff “Making A Fire” is a triumphant anthem from the 70s, aided by the chorus mentioned above, bringing to mind sunburnt convertible seats and the smell of Coppertone. I love the smoky percussion that brings the title track to life, evoking a dramatic Eagles saga around Long term. (Taylor Hawkins is having a great time with this album, you can tell.) And while the feeling of ending the track “Love Dies Young” is depressing, it is reinforced by the brilliant guitars that sound from the 80’s directing the track.
“Shame, shame” not even to belong on this album. And yet, Alex, you apparently like that song. What gives?
Alex McLevy: I understand why you grabbed “Shame, Shame” like a club to hit me, Gwen. I think your reaction was shared by many people that night SNL, but I also think that current events have influenced that perception. Joe Biden had just been declared the official winner of the 2020 presidential election and the country was in a mood for celebration. “Shame, shame” sounded like a fart in the church – a discouraging and pessimistic number when people were looking for a hymn for “Times like these”. But if Trump had won, I think he probably would have played very well; more importantly, it was exactly the type of left curve, stylistically speaking, that the band needed. It is a sad song, in minor tones, with some interesting vocal melodies, and I admire the attempt at something new – I would venture to say that it is one of my favorite tracks on the new album, which should tell you something significant about the low light in which I am. hold the rest.
G / O Media can receive a commission
Like you, I was a fan from the beginning; hell, even more, considering Grohl actually reached out to me like a young punk boy to offer words of encouragement when I needed them. I will always be curious to know what he is doing. But something funny has happened in recent years. First, there was the Sonic Highways documentary and accompanying album, which was the first time that I realized that Grohl was not exactly a world-class lyricist. This was a great series of music docs that unfortunately ended each episode with a new song from Foo fighters, the lyrics displayed prominently on the screen – a genuine mistake, if the program wanted people to come back with a newfound admiration for the words of Grohl. Likewise, I could never really get in Concrete and gold, which sounded a bit like a bar band playing covers of old classic-rock B-sides – fun at times, but hardly inspiring.
But, good God, that last album shit in bed. You call “Making A Fire” triumphant; I started laughing the first time I heard those opening “nah nah nah”, and I have a hard time imagining someone taking this seriously, much less finding it incredible. It is an attempt to break a little of that old FM radio flavor you mentioned, but frankly, the band does not have the compositional capacity to incorporate such ambitious flourishes. As well as the acoustic half of In your honor always seemed like a wrong turn away from Grohl’s strong suits as a musician (ie, loud guitars and thunderous rock choruses), Midnight remedyEfforts to bring heavy retro-rock influences from synthesizers and orchestrals play like the not-cool uncle of someone who used to perform in a hair metal band discovering Pro Tools and thinking, “Cool, I always wanted to do Bat Out Of Hell IV! “While I admire Grohl’s proud adherence to the “father rock” label, this does not mean that he really needs to become one of those parents trying to relive glory days that were never really his; other people have already done that song, and they did it very well, so watching it shine below the standard seems like a drag. It’s Homer Simpson explaining the competent work of Don Brewer’s drums from the Grand Funk Railroad to his children.
But maybe I’m being rude to the rest of the album. Gwen, we haven’t discussed some of the other tracks yet; In addition to your favorites (which again, it’s hard to “agree to disagree”), is the album as a whole really delivering all of these incredible riffs and kickback pleasures to you?
Gwen Ihnat: Wow, this is a direct vitriol of a supposed fan, Alex (you spent a rough time with “boring uncle”; come on, Dave would always be the coolest uncle). Granted, I believe my bar is (much) lower than yours; At this point in your career, with album number 10, I’m just happy to have Foo songs that I want to hear more than a few times. To that end, although the rock music “Waiting On A War” sounds like a more muted “Times Like This” or “The Best Of You”, it still manages to grab me in the end. Although I fully understand what you are saying about the lyrics: O “Is there more than that?” the chorus is banal enough to slip far below even my Foo Fighters limbo bar. I welcome the musical teeth exposed in “No Son Of Mine”, which is a fun heavy rock that I can already imagine witnessing live. But on a very compact album (nine tracks), there are some, like “Cloudspotter” and “Holding Poison”, that just aren’t glued to me, no matter how many times I hear them. (In the meantime, I’ll probably never get the slow “Shame, Shame” melody out of my brain, and I really would you like to.) If I was evaluating it, I would put it on track C +, hoping that on album number 11 the band could discover more of those contagious rock hooks that I love.
But at this point, they really don’t have to. The next album can only be covers, acoustic or live. The Foo Fighters built enough rock (to read: “rawk”) willingness to get a lifetime pass from me, and I will continue to see them live until they really look like those octogenarians from the “Run” video. At that point, good Foo music – and yes, I would put “Making The Fire” and “Love Dies Young” in that category, I liked those backing vocals and 80s riffs that you mock so fiercely – it’s just sauce. It’s been a long year. Let’s let the Foos have fun.
I AM: Hey, I only envy someone having fun when it’s substandard material offered to fans as something they should pay to own! Oh wait. Look, you’re sure I have been scoffing at some of these tracks fiercely, but in my defense, they deserve it. “Love Dies Young”, for example, is a closer album that sounds more like a Journey or Heart album than a 21st century Foo Fighters song, and “Cloudspotter” – a track that you have cleverly omitted from your defense, so as not to make my point to myself – it sounds like a song that Ace Frehley would have left out for being too tacky. When Grohl covered Frehley’s “Ozone” to side B of “Big Me” back when, it looked like a good-natured goof; now i worry that he wanted to write such stupid songs all the time. (I’m being nice to not only extract large blocks of lyrics from “Cloudspotter” here; let’s just include the chorus “Callin ‘on someone else / put your 2 cents where the sun doesn’t shine” and leave it at that.)
I really wanted to like Midnight remedy. As you correctly pointed out, Dave Grohl will always be the cool uncle, even when he makes mistakes like this. I’ll probably still call myself a fan, and I’ll still turn on the speakers whenever “The Pretender” plays. I used to have a theory that all the other records made by Foos went from good to great, something like the “even number” Star Trek movies concept. Wasting light, in your honor, color and shape (I know I’m cheating a little bit here, but you get the idea) – all delivery systems for a glass more than half full of a big rawk. But I’m concerned that they may have settled in at a pace I’m not so excited about anymore: rewriting old genres and old styles, rather than distilling what they did into new fucking flavors. Grohl can make big hits, but it seems that he has apostatized and has become somewhat comfortable goofing on the hard rock of his youth. At least “Shame Shame” was different in a way that didn’t seem like an attempt to imitate anything else; I don’t expect a new revealing phase for the band – but are some catchy singles too much to ask for?