Thursday, April 21, 2011

Music Review – Foo Fighters Wasting Light


I don’t know that I’ve ever done a music review on the blog; well, at least not of a CD. Concerts, sure; but CDs, not so much. I’m not really sure why that is, maybe because I’ve bought so few CDs in recent years that were actually worthy of a review. Although the last Pearl Jam CD wasn’t so bad. Anyway, on to the CD at hand…

The Foo Fighters haven’t put out a new album in a sweet forever… also known as 2007. So, needless to say, to those of us who are lovers of Dave Grohl and all things Foo Fighters, this album, titled "Wasting Light" was much anticipated – especially after Lance Armstrong tweeted that he got an advanced copy and loved it.

Wasting Light “dropped” last week. I really hate that term by the way. I suppose I just used it here so I could say that I hate it. I much prefer saying it was released last week. And so, I purchased it from my local Target last Friday.

Not wanting to forsake my French lessons in the car, I waited a couple of days before popping it into the CD player. On Sunday morning as I got in the car to go to church, I guess I felt like rocking out and put it in.

OH MY WORD! Best CD I’ve heard in a long time people. THE BEST! I contemplated how I was even going to put into words how much I love this CD because I’m really not even sure that there are adequate words to describe my love. It’s seriously that good.

All of the songs are fantastic, but so far my three favorite are Dear Rosemary, Arlandria, and These Days. Of course, this is subject to change as each time the next song on the playlist comes on, I realize that I really love it too! The lyrics are great, the music is great, it’s all great – it’s seems old school to me and I think that’s why I love it so much. I can totally see myself loving this record in high school or college. When I’m driving down the road, it’s like I can’t get the volume high enough! I want to be enveloped by this music – it’s that good!

Dave Grohl’s voice is as amazing as ever. And, can I just stop for a minute to tell you how much I love the drums on this CD. I don’t think I paid much attention to the drum beat until I dated Tony and then that’s about all I listened to. The drums on this CD are amazing, in my opinion. I don’t know if Taylor did all the drumming or if Dave did some of it as well but the drums – out of this world. I’m sure Tony knows and maybe he can leave a comment and let us know who drummed on which songs. He’s a studier of Dave’s drumming technique and usually knows right off if it’s Dave or Taylor drumming.

I’m obviously not a very good music reviewer in that I can’t tell you about the technical aspects of the album. But, coming from a lover of rock music, this new Foo Fighter album is hard to beat. I’m afraid the French lessons may take a little longer than expected to resume.

Edit: Here's some technicalinformation on the album from Tony, a stalker of Dave Grohl:

This album was the first FF album produced by Butch Vig (he produced the Nirvana Nevermind album and he was also in the band Garbage).  The new album was also recorded on tape (analog) in Dave’s garage.  When recording on tape, you have less room for error as opposed to digital.  Most everyone now days records digitally.  Pearl Jam is one exception.  With digital if you mess up, you can just punch in at that moment, correct the mistake and keep on trucking.  On tape, you can punch in but you have to either play the whole part over or start from where the mistake is and play it out.  As you may have noticed they took the master tapes that these were recorded on and sliced them into 1 million pieces which are included with the first release of the album.  This is also the first album that the FF have made with 3 guitarists now that Pat Smear is back with the band.  On Dear Rosemary, the other guy singing is Bob Mould, who was in Husker Du, one of Dave’s favorite bands growing up.  On I Should Have Known, the gritty bass line towards the end is Krist from Nirvana.  That’s the first time he’s ever been on a FF album. 

Good stuff from Tony, like I said, he's a Dave Grohl stalker and knows all things Foo Fighters.

2 comments:

Tony said...

Taylor did all the drumming as far as I know. Dave made a point a few records back to leave the drumming to Taylor. The only time Dave drums now is when Taylor sings. Dave gets his drumming fix in Them Crooked Vultures.

Erika said...

Perhaps we'll have to listen next Wed. night on our weekly trip to church :)
Tony - so proud of you for leaving your name in the comments ;)