Foo Fighters - Greatest Hits Review [2]

Posted by Scott Rutherford on 11.04.2009

Can one of my favorite bands of all time release a CD full of great songs and still get a recommendation to avoid? Yes, I believe they can!

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Fooies fan. I saw them live here in Australia before their first album was released and instantly feel in love with Dave Grohl’s easy melodies, catchy hooks and nerdy charm. It’s no surprise that my country feel in love with this band and still remains, per capita, their biggest market simply by virtue of the fact that this delivers time and again live and on record. To say these guys are FM radio staples would be an understatement and is the one country Grohl states he is treated like a rock star….even if it does make him uncomfortable.

To review this album is a no brainer, what better way to spend an hour than to listen to the biggest songs in the Fooies catalogue side-by-side in one glorious package with a couple of new tracks thrown in for good measure? Sadly, after listening to this collection I am torn on whether this is actually good or band.

For starters the track listing…

"All My Life" (From the album One by One)
"Best of You" (From the album In Your Honor,)
"Everlong" (From the album The Colour and the Shape)
"The Pretender" (From the album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace)
"My Hero" (From the album The Colour and the Shape)
"Learn to Fly" (From the album There Is Nothing Left to Lose)
"Times Like These" (From the album One by One)
"Monkey Wrench" (From the album The Colour and the Shape)
"Big Me" (From the album Foo Fighters)
"Breakout" (From the album There Is Nothing Left to Lose)
"Long Road to Ruin" (From the album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace)
"This Is a Call" (From the album Foo Fighters)
"Skin and Bones" (From the EP - Five Songs and a Cover)
"Wheels" (Previously unreleased)
"Word Forward" (Previously unreleased)
"Everlong" (Acoustic)

Too break that down, The Colour and the Shape is the most represented with 3 tracks, while Foo Fighters, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One By One, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace have two and In Your Honor has one. We get one double up with the acoustic version of “Everlong” and two unreleased tracks. Here in lies my problem(s)…

What becomes apparent is they are masters of updating their sound while never changing their style. These songs could interchange on most albums and besides obvious sonic and productions differences, there is no great variance. Is that a bad thing? No, it isn’t because I love every song on here but I can easily see a listener that is less of a fan than I getting bored and switching off or tuning out as the songs progress.

Also, this is hardly a collection of “greatest” hits. I can see this as an issue when the F.Fer’s were compiling the listing. There are several notable omissions (“Next Year”, “Generator”, “I’ll Stick Around”, “Low”, “DOA”, “Resolve”, “The One” and “Walking After You”) that really needed to be noted. I know that space is always at a premium on a CD and the fact that the Fighters have officially release 28 singles in their history means some tracks have to miss out. However, the inclusion of “Skin and Bones” is a bit of a head scratcher as it belongs to a little known EP release (or the little bought live acoustic album of the same name) and ditto for the acoustic version of “Everlong” which double-dips on the same CD, which is unforgivable.

The reality is for any fan of the band this is not worth picking up because in the age of iTunes, we can download the two unreleased tracks separately as we would most likely have everything else on this compilation. And for the naysayers who will point out this is a great primer for anyone checking out the band for the first time all I have to say is FUCKING DUH! If your greatest hits collection didn’t serve this function then you are in serious fucking trouble.

What rankles is because this is a “greatest hits” collection rather than a “best of” most of the best songs in their cannon will not even get considered let alone rate a spot. A quick run through their tracks on any of their albums shows an abundance of fantastic songs waiting for a wider audience. Case in point: check out “Aurora” from There’s Nothing Left To Lose. This may be Grohl’s defining moment as a songwriter. In fact, their whole third album is just a masterwork of understated melodies, hooks and genuine emotion and also has the great Courtney Love fuck you in the ferocious “Stacked Actors” (again, another single sadly not included).

Even the deluxe edition of the compilation annoys me as it includes a book and a DVD featuring some of the band's music videos and live performances. Jesus, Youtube has all the videos and the bands released a couple live DVD previously. I couldn’t car less about a book…there’s nothing in the collection that makes me want to reach into my pocket to buy it and that’s the trouble.

All of what I talked about focuses on one single point, greatest hits compilation albums are a dinosaur concept these days and are nothing more than a cheap ploy to boost record company coffers. Even when they had some relevance, the cynical nature of these types of releases has always chided with fans were mostly avoided. Today, as I’ve already stated, you can go and cherry pick songs from a bands back catalogue and create your own greatest hits and most casual fans will be doing this anyway. iTunes has changed the nature of the beast and trying to market to casual fans runs the risk of alienating the people that actually spend money on buying albums they can easily download themselves with 2 minutes of searching and 5 minutes of downloading.

My solution? Fuck the casual fan! Casual fans will pick the songs they like when they come out and avoid albums because of the great unknown of listening to 12 songs they might not like as much. Release a legit “Best Of” album that focuses on the material that WASN’T singles that couldn’t be released because of the lack of commercial appeal. I’ll start the ball rolling….”New Way Home”. This is the final track on the original release ofThe Colour and The Shape. Has no structure as parts don’t repeat and suddenly turns into a different song half way through. Not many people know this song exists and they really should.

As a Foo Fighters fan I am aware of a great list of b-sides and covers that they have recorded over the years as well and I would pay serious money for a single or double disc of these rarities. I’m sure there are a legions of Foo Fighter fans that are unaware of the great pleasure of this bands cover of The Ramones “Danny Says” or the playful weirdness they show with their version of "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" originally recorded by British one-hit-wonders The Passion.

How many of you reading this are aware of The Foo’s cover of Arcade Fires “Keep You Car Running”? How about the Joe Walsh rocker “Life of Illusion”? The Wings/Paul McCartney classic “Band on the Run”? Or for those who really want to hear an odd combination…their cover of Princes “Darling Nikki”? How many now are interested in hearing those covers? My guess is I’ve piqued a fair bit of interest at this point.

At worst, they should have released a double disc set with greatest hits on one side and a collection of curiosities on the other. At least this plays to both sides of the fence.

While I’m in no way advocating the downloading of anything illegally, if anyone stumbles across the homebrew compilation online titled Missing Pieces, you will find a treasure trove of goodies never before released in the U.S.A. Although is doesn’t include all the songs I’ve mentioned, it’s a fun listen for those craving “new” material.

So after all that, what do I recommend?

Truth be told, this is a massive disappointment. Even the new songs are nothing great, although I like the Tom Petty feel of “Wheels” and prey it’s a sign of the Foo Fighters trying to integrate more sounds and styles into their tool box. As an easy compilation of some of their biggest hits it’s a one-stop shop, but career retrospectives need to have more depth and that’s what is sorely lacking in the CD.

Hopefully wiser heads will prevail and something more fan-orientated will emerge at some stage that can be of interest to casual fans and diehards alike because as far this Greatest Hits is concerned, there’s nothing new hear for the fans like me who have been loyal and really there’s nothing much for casual fans because even they would have heard this all before. The only group of people who will find this interesting is people who have only recently come to the band but again, iTunes can serve as a place to listen to EVERYTHING the band can offer, not just a grab of their singles.

The 411: While almost every song in this selection is great, as a hits package it falls well short. As much as it saddens me to say, even as a huge Fighters fan, give this a miss. Any rating this gets is purely based on the fact I like these songs, just not in a selection released in this fashion.

Final Score:  3.0   [ Bad ]