1) the stairway tele fender reverb intro is totally cliched, and sounds like a line 6 device on top of it.
2) the guitars are so perfectly in time and haphazardly played that i'm honestly wondering if it's put together with a sequencer.
3) when grohl screams nowadays, it's the kind of fake muffled/whispered scream that you do in your living room when your mom is sleeping with the intent of not waking her up. then he amplifies it through a limiter. honestly? that's no different than using autotune.
4) the little counterpoint in the guitar riff at the beginning would have been kind of neat if it wasn't so sterile and robotic.
5) the rest of it is just like...garage jamming on couches with cheap beer...and no effort....pulled directly from ass.
this guy is so beyond irrelevant that it's irritating that i need to bother. but he keeps selling records for reasons i don't really get. it continues.
Carnage Racing
Dude, it's just loud rock music, not something to be examined under a microscope. That's all Dave even meant for it to be... and THAT is why he keeps selling records. Quit over analyzing it. Listen or don't, but holy crap this isn't American Idol.
deathtokoalas
i suppose that puts the foofighters alongside whitesnake and kiss in terms of genre, purpose and fan base?
it's true, but it's very disappointing.
pointing out that it's cliched, generic and stuffy sounding isn't overanalyzing it. i didn't even mention the lyrics. it's just realizing that it sucks
Adam Green
Yet you came Herr to listen ? Keeps selling music because its a good song noon e said you had to like it but I'm guessing you do other wise why are you hear I don't go listen to Britney spears song's even if they are number 1 world wide
deathtokoalas
where is this idea of "coming here to listen" stemming from? this weird idea of youtube as a television replacement?
i didn't come here, the link came to me over a feed. i then checked it out out of curiosity. it was a long time ago, but i did spend quite a bit of time listening to the first foofighters disc back in the day, as well as records by that other band he was in. i have every right to listen to it and leave a comment, even if i haven't enjoyed anything he's done in over fifteen years.
i mean, you realize that when a band gets a million hits, it doesn't mean they have a million fans, right? it means they have an advertising machine behind them that convinced a million people to give it a chance.
from the band's perspective, this is an advertisement for their record. the audience listens to it in an attempt to decide if they're going to like it, not because they already do like it. if they already like it, they'll put on the record that they purchased.
right?
or, at least, that's how it's supposed to work...
so, if you're a fan, like, get off youtube and go listen to the record you bought and leave the conversation to those who aren't...
Carnage Racing
I just can't help but wonder why, if Dave Grohl is so iirrelevant you were still compelled to let everybody know that this song is beneath you. It's not a BAD song. In fact, the elements borrowed from other songs were done in tribute. That should be very obvious given that the entire RECORD was made to be a tribute to the history of rock music, you know, being that each song was recorded in a different studio in a different city featuring a different guest artist. Dave Grohl never claimed to be a superb musician. Never. He DOES, however, proclaim himself as a music lover, and everything he's been doing for the last 10 years or so has been about paying homage and respect to the roots of our favorite classic songs and artists. Foo Fighters themselves are a silly band, Dave admits this openly, but the one thing he's serious about is loving music. Watch Sound City and maybe you'll begin to understand what this is all about.
deathtokoalas
if you take a look through my google profile, you'll notice that i post comments on a lot of current music that is popular, if not relevant. it's something that i enjoy doing, and my motives really aren't particularly relevant to the content of the analysis.
if you look at charts over the last ten years, you'll notice that the foofighters continue to sell absurd amounts of records. there are various obvious reasons as to why, but the band is in a category where the quality isn't really a dominant factor. anything grohl releases is going to sell. your reaction is a partial explanation of it.
now, i didn't really criticize the tune on it's lack of originality. i criticized it on it's lack of delivery. the riff isn't stolen from stairway, and i didn't say it was.
is it a bad song? it's pretty weak, for the reasons i mentioned. if you're looking for raw rock and roll, this isn't it - this is overproduced and lifeless. people age and their tastes shift and that's normal, but i continue to (perhaps delusionally....) expect a certain level of immediacy from his work that's been absent for years.
the take-away from the brief analysis is simply "more boring farty rock and roll from grohl, don't bother".
Juan Pata
im a big foos fan, and i have to admit this isnt exactly what LOUD rock and roll means to me, i cant really imagine myself gettin exited to hear this song in a show, this song is eally boring
deathtokoalas
it's not boring due to the structuring, though, it's boring due to the way it's being played. it's a neat, bouncy riff, but whoever is playing the guitars really does sound like a computer...
Juan Pata
yea thats what i mean, the structure is similar to but honestly but this one lacks power and feelindg that lookslike dave wanted to compensate screamin
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
why do people have to be insulting? i keep blocking people that insult me out of principle, and nobody gets it.
i have a profile full of music. grohl was a bit of an influence on me up to about '98 or so, but i'm definitely not operating in the kind of commercial space he operates in. just because i don't write rock/pop music, though, doesn't mean i can't be a fan of it or criticize it in it's own space. i'm not looking to grohl to write symphonies, but it would be nice if he was a little less middle-of-the-road about what he does than he has been for the last forever.
also, i think you need to think carefully if you're going to start correlating quality with popularity. at that point, you're really going over the tipping point into farty rock music type thinking. nearly everything that sells as well as the foofighters does is absolute trash. grohl is coming from a different place, culturally, but there's an essay here i don't want to write - other than to plead with you not to make this argument.
Zach Farrell
i agree that this sounded over produced. Unlike their last album witch was just perfect in terms of production. Using old ways of producing rock is where it's at, as far as i'm concerned. It sounds better to me.
Elie Makhkouta
what about the small guitar solo?
deathtokoalas
what about it?
it's a good form, nothing wrong with using it...
Joe Blow
I'm a musician too bro! A+ for knowledge xx
deathtokoalas
don't bro me, dude. i'm thoroughly female.
Joe Blow
Whoops
Mango Supreme
Do you have a source for #3?
deathtokoalas
if you know what a limiter sounds like, you know he's either using a limiter or he's amphibian. wait, maybe grohl is a lizard person.
probably not, though. limiters are widely used in recording. they're not often thought of as a production trick, but the truth is that they kind of are.
superstratman13
on number 3 could be just a chorus effect put in post production
deathtokoalas
a chorus does the opposite of what a limiter does.
limiters are useful. i use them for bass - virtually everybody does. with vocals, what a limiter allows you to do is yell into the mic without it crackling. with a really passionate, loud yell it's very useful. however, it can also kill the dynamics if it's used too heavily.
what the track sounds like is sort of barely yelling into the mic, then compressing it to make it sound louder than it is, the culmination of which makes it sound pretty fake.
it's not autotune in the sense of fixing a bad take. but it's no less processed, really.
there's a delay/echo or reverb on the scream though, too.
a good way to hear the limiting is when he says "someTHING for noTHING". the unprocessed take would hear the volume rise with "thing" in both cases, we'd have to talk linguistics to discuss that, but you know it's true through intuition and experience. that rise is then flattened out by the limiting into a steady flow. the whole thing is then boosted to give it more "grit". but the grit is in the processing.
i'm not a purist, or anything. the idea doesn't bother me on the idea level. it's just not meshing well in the track - it comes off sounding like it's trying to be raw, and not succeeding, rather than actually being raw.
excuse me, i have to take a call from albini on line two...
Solomon Kim
I watched your commentary on the sideline and I must agree with your points, though perhaps through different expectations, I am able to enjoy the song a little more "for what it is." You sound like a musician/producer (I have experience in both myself). Do you have anything online?
deathtokoalas
as i stated previously, i have a youtube channel full of music. it is crosslinked to a more comprehensive bandcamp site.
i'm currently in the process of "completing my discography", which ran from about 96-11. i got evicted in late 2011, lost my studio and had to re-evaluate the thrust of my existence. there's tons of half-finished ideas i'm completing and uploading. i'm currently in early 2002 in that process.
the earliest material (when i was around 15 years old) is coming out of a grunge influence, but it's primarily experimental electronic music and isn't going to be of general interest to most foofighters fans - especially not fans of post-shape foofighters. i'm not trying to stereotype, but it's the truth of it. 99/100 people viewing this thread are likely to merely be confused by it.
StripedDash
Man go and shit all pop music leave the only good nowaday music alone. Rest in peace , living monstrosity!
deathtokoalas
there's tons of great punk bands out there right now with heavy grunge leanings, if you'd take the time to look into it.
Solomon Kim
I'm a musician myself, primarily influenced by certain 60s sensibilities and modern sounds like St. Vincent and Kishi Bashi. I have a place for the Fighters somewhere in there.
Unexceptional Name
You're such a pessimist. On a lighter note, your profile picture (while creepy) fits very well with your attitude.
ChannelDead
you didn't mention he ripped the main riff from Dio's "Holy Diver"
deathtokoalas
i'm not familiar with dio, and wouldn't hear it if he did.
