lite.

it all, Jonny. I find the Foo Fighters incredibly dull and have yet to find one single track to help explain what the fuss is about. Tedious, plodding, Q cover, festival fodder. Someone put the live album on at work and I swear I didn't know who I wanted to kill first - the person who put it on, Grohl or myself.

And yes, if I hear one more time about how nice a man he is...

and I thought it was just me. I have really tried to give them a good go due to the aforementioned good-blokishness of Dave Grohl but it's just dull.

I'll be the brave dissenter then.

I don't have a wide selection of the oeuvre - just the one, "in your honor", to be honest.

And I really like it. I don't know "sonic range" from apples, but I like putting on the car stereo, winding the windows down and driving the interstate with it playing rather loudly. It's not demanding, or stretching. FF are a bit ronseal, really. and none the worse for it.

I find them desperately dull too, while several colleagues rave about them. I quite liked Learning To Fly (fab vid too), but that's all. The rest is a snoozefest.

I love Shellac and the Stooges and Nirvana but equally have listened to and enjoyed FF from day one. There's a lot more to them than Learning to Fly, the new single Rope is bloody great for example. Kitty Empire called them 'chug rock' in a recent review which I think is going a bit far, but I can see where she's coming from to an extent. But its like just about any band that's been around for long enough, they're less and less likely to surprise you. Would Nirvana have morphed into U2 if Cobain had put down the shotgun?

I 'should' like Foo Fighters, given all the rock/metal I listen to, but I just don't.

I suspect it's mainly his voice I can't get on with. I like a lot of proper singers, and I like a lot of extreme vocalists (you know, the guys that just scream on grind and thrash records). But DG's vocals are a kind of raspy halfway-house which for whatever reason don't float my boat.

I think he's a better drummer than anything else. One of THE best, in fact. On the 'Them Crooked Vultures' album, for example. Blimey.

...the new single 'Rope' sounds an awful lot like King Crimson with a right good Fripp-y guitar part. And I bet lots 'o ye like King Crimson, eh?

This Is A Call, DOA, Monkeywrench, Learning To Fly, Breakdown, All My Life, Pretender, Times Like These, Best Of You - enough to make up a pretty good comp cd - all top tunes that also give it plenty of welly.

I always think of the Foo Fighters more as power pop anyway. File next to the likes of Fountains Of Wayne or Brendan Benson. Grohl certainly has an ear for a pop hook.

And he does seem like a very nice man....

"Download a few tracks here and there" band. It's very good of its kind and there's plenty who like that kind but it just isn't the kind that particularly inspires me.

Best of all, though, I'd point people at their fantabulistic cover of Wings' "Band on The Run." Awesome!

No rickenbackers, no real jangle, too throaty, no edge, no sparkle and not much to say. The only time they've held my attention is when Prince fabulously covered The Best Of Me (?).

is on the new CD and that DG has confessed that they were influenced a lot by Husker Du.

I've always seen FF as a less interesting facsimile of Husker Du. Not quite fast enough, not quite loud enough, lyrics not quite as pithy and missing that bubblegum "popcore" thing that the Huskers had going.

I've really WANTED to like them and apart from "Learning To Fly" which could come off "Flip Your Wig", I've always found them a bit too workmanlike to be a really enjoyable listen.

you cannot truly appreciate Foo Fighters until you've seen them live. Dave Grohls stage presence, live playing and sheer charisma is astonishing. I've seen them twice now and can't wait to see them again in July. The whole family is going and maybe that is why they are so popular there are no boundaries to who can enjoy them, of course this may also work against them. They are pop rock, great fun, some brilliant tunes and completely devoid of pretension. Until you've seen "Monkey Wrench" live you haven't seen the best of Foo.

but I have to plead complete and utter ignorance of this band. Other than knowing their name and that one of them was once in Nirvana I couldn't name a song or an album they have produced - 'Greatest Hits' perhaps?

it's the right songs but wrong style? Glen Campbell's version suits Times Like These better for me. There's songwriting talent there which gets a bit bludgeoned out of existence in the original. It's pop! Perhaps it's a case of a band with only one song I like though.

but you don't see a lot of Foo around these days. They must be doing something right.

This is why the latest album sounds so nasty, the bits in red are where the track is overloaded-the entire album is like this and imho should be remastered

in the UK and it was brilliant. A band finding their feet and playing around with styles and this was reflected in their debut album which I think is still their high point.
Fantastic chord changes, power pop, ballads, Pixies style loudQUIET stuff, a real mix up and then they went all rawk and lost a lot of the fun (and Pat Smear left which was always going to be a great loss)
Haven't listened to it for a while so I shall remedy that now.

They said that there was a lack of quirk or eccentricity to make it more than just workmanlike. They added that their A&R man never has to worry about them suddenly coming up with something unexpected.

I don't hate them. I just don't care about their existence. A very easily ignored band.