Foo Fighters - Greatest Hits Review

Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 11.03.2009

Fifteen years of hits incorporated onto a sixteen-track set, this is the absolute best of the Foo Fighters.



Foo Fighters - Greatest Hits
Review by Daniel Wilcox

Dave Grohl - vocals, guitar
Chris Shiflett - guitar
Nate Mendel - bass
Taylor Hawkins - drum

Track listing:
1. All My Life
2. Best of You
3. Everlong
4. The Pretender
5. My Hero
6. Learn to Fly
7. Times Like These
8. Monkey Wrench
9. Big Me
10. Breakout
11. Long Road to Ruin
12. This is a Call
13. Skin and Bones
14. Wheels
15. Word Forward
16. Everlong (acoustic version)

With Dave Grohl set to focus on new supergroup Them Crooked Vultures along with John Paul Jones and Josh Homme, and other band members working on various projects, now is the perfect time for the Foo Fighters to release their Greatest Hits. Of course, when Kurt Cobain committed suicide way back when, no one thought that the Nirvana drummer’s new project would last past anything more than a couple of demo tapes. Well that first demo tape made up the majority of the self-titled, from which two tracks are featured on this record, and the follow-up The Colour and the Shape ensured that the band would go on, and go on they have. The aforementioned sophomore record was stunning, and subsequent albums have each been impressive in their own right, and thus as you’d expect this is an album full of huge songs with huge pop choruses. What the album doesn’t feature is some of those “fan-favourites” that never made it to radio, but that’s no bad thing, as the album essentially serves as a beginner’s guide to the Foo Fighters, with a couple of previously unreleased tracks thrown in for good measure.

Part of the problem, however, is that anyone who’s come within ten feet of a radio in the last fifteen years is going to be familiar with the vast majority of the songs featured on this Greatest Hits package. All of the band’s biggest and most well-known songs are here and there’s not much else. The new single “Wheels” and the other new song “Word Forward” will likely be downloaded en mass by individuals who want to listen to them, and thus major fans of the band will have no particular reason to buy the album. As such, this record serves a starter’s guide to the Foos and nothing else. And in a day and age where record sales are low, one has to wonder exactly what the point of this collection is.

The tracks that people won’t be familiar with are “Wheels” and “Move Forward.” Both tracks were produced by Butch Vig, who is a hell of a talent who worked with Grohl when producing Nirvana’s classic Nevermind, and has also worked with Green Day, Against Me and Jimmy Eat World in recent years. “Wheels” is vintage Foo Fighters, with a fantastic blend of electric and acoustic guitars, Grohl’s powerful and frustrated vocal making for a huge chorus. Unfortunately it’s nothing groundbreaking or new, echoing the themes of the song, a lack of progression in life. If Foo’s were ever to be criticized, you feel that that would be the main argument against them. Yes, they make good songs, sometimes great songs, but they’ve never been consistently great. “Word Forward” is again vintage Foo Fighters, opening with a melancholy little acoustic arrangement before Grohl’s vocal explodes with the line “they’re just fucking words.” From their the instrumentation is heavier but ultimately the song fails to resonates and the chorus isn’t all that impressive.

All in all, Greatest Hits is everything you’d expect it to be. It’s got all the big hits from “All My Life” to “Learn to Fly” to “The Pretender.” There are only two tracks that I’m surprised/disappointed didn’t make the cut, those being “D.O.A.” and “The One,” but there’s more than enough here to keep fans satisfied. And if you’re not familiar with the band but want to be, this is essential.

Essential downloads: “All My Life,” “Best of You,” “Everlong,” “My Hero,” “Learn to Fly,” “Monkey Wrench,” “Breakout,” “This is a Call” and “Wheels.”

The 411: Dave Grohl and co. have dominated radio for the past fifteen years, and that dominance is captured expertly in this sixteen-track set that just about features all of the band's bigger, best and most well-known hits. This album highlights one of the best modern bands around at their loudest and most rocking, but ultimately it's just a collection of songs we're all greatly familiar with, and didn't need to be put out on another record.

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]