Album Review: Foo Fighters - Your Favorite Toy

Is rock dead? Of course the answer is no, but there is a similar question we should be asking that isn't quite so easy to answer. Is rock cool? That's the one we really need to think about. Ever since rock and roll became a thing, it has been a source of cool, but it's easy now to look back and see how each generation of cool became lame as time wore on. That leaves us with a situation today where there is no new generation of rock in the mainstream, so the bands currently undergoing the lame-ing process are still the faces of rock.

No one fits that bill more than Dave Grohl, who has been spending the last decade destroying all the credibility he acquired from being in Nirvana. Foo Fighters have been growing stale, boring, and reliant on the kinds of gimmicks that make it feel as if they don't want to even be a band anymore. Maybe the passing of Taylor Hawkins was the right moment to put the band to rest, but instead they carry on making us question when the long fall finally hits the ground.

This album is centered around the concept of noise, and some harsh instrumental pieces Dave had been writing. They had 'energy' he felt the band needed, and became the basis for this record. That's at least an artistic choice, rather than the way they tried to usurp the vibe of different cities, or recording in different studios just for the sake of crossing them off their bucket list. It's been hard to defend the band's artistic process, and this record again shows Dave often forgets what made Foo Fighters (and Nirvana, for that matter) beloved in the first place.

This record shares the most DNA with "One By One", but the difference is stark; "One By One" was a record of tight songs that were played with raw intensity, while this record is a set of raw ideas that lack the songwriting polish to make them memorable. It's very much an illustration of the difference between music and sound. Plenty of people will enjoy this because it's loud and raucous, while those of us who appreciate the craft of songwriting more than the sound of a particular amp will come away disappointed.

The title track is where things hit rock bottom, as Dave buries his voice under a wash of distortion that is truly painful to listen to, which is baffling, because he can still scream well enough to get the distortion the natural way. Choices like that would engender long discussions if this was an album that was worth such investment, but these songs offer little for us to grasp and enjoy. It's a record that looks back at "Wasted Light" (their last good album) and thinks "White Limo" needed to be remade three or four times on a single record, when that was the worst song they had ever recorded up to that point.

Maybe Dave shouldn't be writing a song called "Child Actor" when his daughter is currently trying to get a music career off the ground. It plays too much into the narrative of nepotism and industry plants to feel obtuse, and Dave's continued shout of "turn the cameras off" sounds more like a man screaming his frustration about his personal life imploding in public than it does anything centered on the song's narrative.

I know I've been harsh on Foo Fighters over the years, and that's because I know they know better. "There Is Nothing Left To Lose", "One By One", and "Wasting Light" are great albums that kept rock going in the mainstream maybe longer than it would have otherwise. It's because they're reached those heights that the depths look as dark and depressing as they are. Dave hasn't completely forgotten how to write a decent song, but he doesn't pull them out very often anymore. This is one of those albums that will be successful on a name-brand basis only, and unfortunately that will be enough to keep Dave thinking he's on the right path.