Essential Foo Fighters Songs

It's strange that I've been listening to the Foo Fighters for close to half of my 31 years. I own all of their albums, buying the last four on the day they've hit stores. I even have a poster on my wall and recently saw them in concert for the first time. Yet, I've never even come close to ranking them among my favorite bands. I guess I just overlooked them, while many other flavor-of-the-weeks just seemed "cool." Metallica was my first "favorite" band; Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie was my first rock CD; Jimmy Eat World and Fleetwood Mac are bands I've been drawn to for their "love" songs; Dream Theater seemed cool for their outrageous song compositions.

I even overlooked the Foo Fighters yet again, thinking this would be an easy top ten. I had ten clear favorites, including "My Hero", "All My Life", "The Pretender", among others. However in the middle of my "research" that involves listening to music on my phone instead of doing actual work at my job, I realized I had far too many songs than I had room for. Here are the ten I was able to whittle it down to...

10. "Cold Day In The Sun" (In Your Honor)
Double albums like this are a serious gamble. The Wall has stood the test of time for it's artistic vision of being a concept album that was translated into a motion picture. Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness was my first "favorite" album and is Billy Corgan at his creative zenith. Although many fall short as they may seem too "bloated", either with a lot of filler tracks or just plain head-scratchers like GNR's "My World" on Use Your Illusion II. Now it almost seems like a gimmick for bands too, with several like Five Finger Death Punch and Stone Sour releasing them as individual albums that were months apart. With the Foo Fighters, they chose to record one as a rock disc and the second as an acoustic disc. I felt like this album was among the "bloated" at first, however, I now look at it as the point where the Foo Fighters rose above their status as an "alternative" band and became true rock legends. They took a risk and it paid off, which was higlighted by their drummer becoming a singer in a reversal on Dave Grohl going from drummer to singer with his previous band.

9. "Stacked Actors" (There Is Nothing Left To Lose)
This would be my first time viewing an music video of the Foo Fighters and it was by accident. In order to use the VCR on my tv, it had to be set to channel "3", so many times at night I'd watch a video tape and once it hit the end, it would rewind itself and shut off. With MTV taking a spot on channel 3, I'd often fall asleep to a video tape and wake up to something on MTV, usually a music video. This song was on one morning and instantly stood out for it's atypical composition. It was almost jarring at first with it's distorted intro before turning into a jazzy rhythm during the verses. I knew I had to get this album, though for some reason I think I got the previous album as a Christmas gift. It was a happy accident because that actually made me even more of a fan through the discovery of the trio of "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", and "My Hero." I was familiar with those songs from the radio but at the time I didn't know they were all on the same disc. I finally bought There Is Nothing Left To Lose when I had my own money after getting a job. 

8. "Everlong" (The Colour & The Shape)
Too much of the first two studio albums (self-titled and The Colour & The Shape) seem to be full of "joke" songs and nothing really sticks with me except for the handful of radio singles. That said, the singles are very strong songs and I still dig "Everlong" for its fast and furious percussion.

7. "Walking After You" (The X-Files soundtrack)
You're probably thinking, "Of course Andy likes the one song that was associated with The X-Files!" While that is true that it was featured during the credits of The X-Files movie, I liked the original version too that was featured on The Colour & The Shape. The version on Skin & Bones is pretty neat, too. There's yet another X-Files connection, though. As I was watching an episode from the third season a few years ago, 2011 to be exact, a character told Agent Mulder that what was seen in the sky was a "foo fighter." HOLY SHIT! I was able to learn something educational while watching the show and also learned where Dave Grohl got the name of his band. Apparently a foo fighter, or faux fighter, was the term for a UFO in World War II. Also during the third season Dave Grohl appeared on screen as an extra in a blink and you'll miss it scene at the FBI office building; more like a "pause the screen and see him only because you have prior knowledge he'll be there" moment because it's not like he's really that noticeable. 

6. "Summer's End" (Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace)
When first listening to Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace, I was super pumped for it's lead-off single, "The Pretender", and I seemed to let that place too much hype on the album. The following three songs would become singles, as I guessed they would be, and I think I also tired of them after hearing them too much because of the radio. I quickly put aside this album due to that burn out and didn't revisit it until going through every Foo Fighters album last fall in anticipation for Sonic Highways. I'm glad I revisited it because I had overlooked this gem; listening to it again in anticipation of their summer concert solidified it's status among my favorites. 

5. "All My Life" (One By One)
This has a simple explanation- it's just a cool song. I thought this was a rock solid album and was my "go-to" when I wanted to listen to the Foo Fighters as it received constant rotation on the CD player in my first car. I was a little shocked to realize it was an album that the band didn't like, but seemed to fit the pattern since I also love Dream Theater's least-liked album, Falling Into Infinity. I'd later learn that it's not the album itself, but the state of mind that both bands were in at the time during the creative process. It's hard to keep songs like "Halo" and "Times Like These" off this list of ten favorites, especially since other artists seem to like "Times Like These" too (both Ryan Adams and Shinedown have recorded covers.)

4. "Come Back" (One By One)
My reason for ranking this song is simple- I just love the composition. Its another of those slow burn songs where it increases throughout to a crescendo, only to shift into an artistic middle section, then back again. For so long, this song was the highlight of One By One and the reason it was my favorite among their albums, only to be topped by Wasting Light.

3. "The Pretender" (Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace)
This song hit me at a perfect moment as I had grown tired of the music I was hearing on the radio. The songs at the time fell into two categories- "post-Grunge" like Three Days Grace and Seether or clones of Buckcherry's "Crazy Bitch", such as Hinder, Saving Abel, even Puddle of Mudd had shifted from a grunge-wannabe band to this style of "trailer park" rock music. I was instantly hooked by "The Pretender" because it had balls, plain and simple. I bought the album the day it was released, and although I would later tire of the album, this song remained a constant.

2. "Best Of You" (In Your Honor)
I liked this song instantly and over time it's steadily grown into an all-time favorite. It seems to me that this might be the signature song of the band, and I feel even more-so because it was chosen to close the show recently at Wrigley Field; even causing Dave Grohl to become emotional on stage.

1. "Walk" (Wasting Light)
I remember "Rope" being released as the first single and it struck me just like "The Pretender" did; a balls-out rocker. I was a bit apprehensive for the rest of the album though, since I had suffered burn out on the previous one. That was not to be the case as I streamed it online before it's release, one of the first instances where I recall an entire album being streamed as a sneak preview, which has now become commonplace. The band was even screening a documentary before the release of Wasting Light, and had a live performance of the album in it's entirety, so I was able to soak it in once again. I acquired free passes from the radio station, even a poster, which I still have on display. I could easily list this entire album as a "best of", though I went with only a single song. I've been drawn to this one as a symbol of rebirth- to me I keep trying to find love and I battle with my own discouragement at doing so. I also feel it perfectly fit the theme of the movie Thor, which it was chosen as a featured song over the closing credits. Thor loses his godly powers and regains them through learning humility as the character learns to "walk" again. Such a great song that often gives me goosebumps.