Tomorrow, the new Foo Fighters album, Medicines at midnight, will come true. On a hand, you probably already know if this is of interest to you or not: the Foo Fighters aren’t exactly the most sonically or stylistically adventurous band in the world, so if you’ve historically enjoyed their particular brand of pop-infused hard rock, there’s a good chances are you are curious to give the new one a spin. On the other hand, this is not quite the same collection of songs that you would normally expect from the band. That difference in noise is made known immediately outside the gate; after opening track “Making A Fire” introduces a pounding mid-tempo drum pattern, followed by a quintessentially classic rock-inspired riff, the shift comes abruptly – a chorus of “Nah nah na-na-na-nahh!” voices erupt over the song, leaving the casual listener wondering if they might have accidentally ejected the late-period Queen. One by one part II, this is not.
The rest of the record follows this example. Here, a Motörhead-meets-Meat Loaf barnburner with choral arrangements in the background (“No Son Of Mine”); there, a Captain And Tennille-level acoustic ballad (“Chasing Birds”). There’s still the occasional old-school Foo Fighters track (“Waiting On A War,” “Holding Poison”), but even those have been liberally leavened with new levels of ’80s synths and rock. out of the blue: the group’s record in 2017, Concrete and gold, began to push gently in this direction. Still, it’s enough to have a Foo Fighters fan pause, take stock of the group, and wonder if this is a band they’d like to keep following. Two AV Club executives, assistant editor Alex McLevy and editorial coordinator Gwen Ihnat, have long listened to Dave Grohl and the company; they had remarkably different responses to it Medicines at midnight, and decided to sit down and express their opposing views to determine what this new record has to offer.
Gwen Ihnat: I will never stop with the Foo Fighters: My love for the first two records still knows no bounds (I would The color and the shape tomorrow) and they’ve given me some of the best live show experiences – yes, even in arena rock– that I’ve ever 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: we all grew up the same classic rock radio. The band is never better than when Dave and his company simply plunge into that unabashed love for bell-bottoms-era rock and roll.
So I was disappointed when the Foos released their new song “Shame Shame” their recent Saturday Night Love appearance. A snoozier song has hardly been released; when people say the Foo Fighters have no new sound to offer, this song, so somnambulantly it seems like it is running backwards, is exactly what they’re talking about. It’s not the worst song on it Medicines at midnight (That would be the hideous schmaltzy “Chasing Birds”, which aspired to “Walking After You” territory and failed miserably). But since “Shame” was the first song I heard, I approached the rest of this new one I HAVE songs faintly – and was hugely surprised (and relieved). Kick-off “Making A Fire” is a triumphant 70s-sounding anthem, supported by the aforementioned chorus, reminiscent of sun-drenched convertible chairs and the scent of Coppertone. I love the smoky percussion that brings the title track to life and evokes a dramatic Eagles saga about The long run. (Taylor Hawkins is having a lot of fun on this record, you know.) And while the feel of closing track “Love Dies Young” is a damper, it is amplified by the gleaming 80s-sounding guitars that power the song.
Not even “Shame Shame” belong on this album. And yet, Alex, you seem to like that song. What gives?
Alex McLevy: I understand why you took “Shame Shame” like a bat to hit me with, Gwen. I think your response was shared by a lot of people that night SNL, but I also think that current events have colored that perception. Joe Biden had just been named the official winner of the 2020 presidential election and the country was in a festive mood. “Shame Shame” went on like a church fart – a discouraging, bleak song when people were looking for a “Times Like These” song. But if Trump had won, I think it probably would have played very well; more importantly, it was just the kind of left turn, stylistically, that the tire needed. It’s a somber, minor lamentation with some interesting vocal melodies, and I admire the attempt at something new – dare say it’s one of my favorite songs on the new record, which should tell you something important about it. faint light in which I hold the rest.
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Like you, I was a fan from the start; Hell, all the more so considering Grohl, actually reached out to me like a young punk boy to give words of encouragement when I needed them. I’ll always be curious to hear what he’s up to. But something funny has happened in recent years. First, there was the Sonic highways documentary and accompanying album, that was the first time I realized that Grohl wasn’t exactly a world-class lyricist. That was a great music doc series that sadly ended every episode with a new Foo Fighters song, the lyrics of which featured prominently on the screen – a real mistake, if the show wanted people to get away with a renewed admiration for Grohl’s words. Likewise, I could never really get into it Concrete and gold, which sounded a little too much like a bar band playing covers of old classic rock B-sides – funny at times, but hardly inspiring.
But good god, this latest album is rubbish. You call “Making A Fire” victorious; I burst out laughing the first time I heard those ‘nah nah nahs open, and it’s hard to imagine anyone taking it seriously, let alone being great. It’s an attempt to take out some of that old FM radio flavor you mention, but frankly the band doesn’t have the songwriting chops to handle such ambitious flourishes. Just like the acoustic half of In honor of you always felt like a misguided detour away from Grohl’s strengths as a musician (i.e. loud guitars and booming rock choruses), Medicines at midnight‘s attempts to bring in synth-heavy and orchestral retro-rock influences play like someone’s uncool uncle who used to perform in a hair-metal band who discovered Pro Tools and thought,’ Sweet, I always wanted Bat Out Of Hell IV! While I admire Grohl’s proud embrace of the ‘dad rock’ label, it doesn’t mean he really should transform into one of those fathers trying to relive glory days that never really were his; other people have already made that music and they’ve made it really well, so it feels like a bummer to see it put on a sub-par shine. It is Homer Simpson who explains the skillful drumming of Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad to his children.
But maybe I’m lurid for the rest of the album. Gwen, we haven’t covered some of the other songs yet; aside from your favorites (which, again, hard ‘agree to disagree’), does the record as a whole really deliver all these great riffs and throwback pleasures for you guys?
Gwen Ihnat: Wow, that’s a downright vitriol from an alleged fan, Alex (you cheekily passed by a while back with “uncool uncle”; come on, Dave would always be the coolest uncle). Admittedly, I believe my bar is (much) lower than yours; at this point in their career, with album number 10, I’m glad I only have Foo songs that I want to hear more than a few times. To that end, while the well-thought-out rock song “Waiting On A War” just sounds like a more muffled “Times Like These” or “The Best Of You”, it still grabs me at the end. While I totally understand what you’re saying about the text, the “Is there more to it than that?” chorus is banal enough to slip well below even my Foo Fighters limbo bar. I welcome the bare musical teeth shown in “No Son Of Mine”, a fun hard rocker that I can already imagine when I witness it live. But in a fairly compact (nine tracks) album there are a few, like “Cloudspotter” and “Holding Poison”, that just don’t stick with me, no matter how often I listen to them. (Meanwhile, I probably never get the melody of ‘Shame Shame’ out of my head, and I want to.) If I was reviewing, I would put this in the C + range, hoping that on album number 11 the band would discover more of those infectious rock hooks that I love.
But at this point, they don’t really need to. The next record can be all covers, or acoustic or live. The Foo Fighters have built up enough rock (to read, “rawk”) goodwill to pass a lifetime of mine, and I’ll keep seeing them until they really look like those eighty-year-olds in the “Run” video. At this point a good Foo song – and yes, I would put “Making The Fire” and “Love Dies Young” in that category, I loved those backing vocals and ’80s riffs you mock so fiercely – just gravy. It’s been a long year. Let’s let the Foos have their fun.
AM: Hey, I only grudge someone having fun if the material is of lesser quality that is offered to fans anyway as something they would have to pay money to own! Oh wait. Look, you’re right that I fiercely mocked some of these songs, but in my defense they usually deserve it. ‘Love Dies Young’, for example, is a closer album that sounds more like a Journey of Heart outtake than a 21st century Foo Fighters song, and ‘Cloudspotter’ – a song you cleverly omit from your defense, lest my argument for to me – comes across as a tune Ace Frehley would have put aside for being too corny. When Grohl covered Frehley’s “Ozone” for the B-side of “Big Me” some time ago, it seemed like a good-natured goof; now i worry that all this time he wanted to write songs that were stupid. (I’m nice by not just taking big blocks of lyrics out of ‘Cloudspotter’ here; let’s add the chorus’ Callin ‘about someone else’s cent / put 2 cents in a place where the sun doesn’t shine’ and leave it at that.)
I really wanted to like it Medicines at midnight. As you rightly point out, Dave Grohl will always be the cool uncle, even when he brings up ominous mistakes like this one. I’ll probably still call myself a fan, and will definitely still be cranking the speakers when “The Pretender” comes on. I had a theory that every other record the Foos made was good to great, somewhat akin to the ‘even numbered Star Trek movies ”concept. Wasting light, in your honor, color and shape (I know I’m cheating a bit here, but you get the idea) – all delivery systems for a more than half full glass of great rawk. But I’m afraid they might have gotten into a groove I’m not so keen on anymore: rewriting old genres and earlier styles, instead of distilling what they’ve done into tough new flavors. Grohl can deliver great hits, but he seems to have relapsed and is a little too comfortable on the hard rock of his childhood. At least “Shame Shame” was different in a way that didn’t feel like an attempt to ape anything else; I don’t expect a revealing new phase from the band, but are a few catchy singles asking too much?