Foo Fighters - Medicine At Midnight

I used to have a copy of the first Foo Fighters album (i wish i hadn't sold it over a decade ago), and now with the untimely passing of Taylor Hawkins i have a copy of what i will consider their last. Not gonna lie, after The Color and the Shape i haven't heard any of their albums. Let's see what happens if we feed the Mogwai Medicine At Midnight. 

Right off the bat, there's something about the first few tracks that i can only describe as: i wouldn't be surprised to learn that Prince wrote all of these songs a year or so before he died. Obviously he didn't, i just have that feeling while listening to it. It's not surprising considering Foo Fighters cover all sorts of Prince songs, and even Chris Cornell did his version of the quintessential "Prince wrote that? Yeah, that makes sense" song Nothing Compares To You. Even if there isn't an actual word for that feeling, it's tangible in my mind. 

I didn't actually review Nowhere Generation by Rise Against, but in a way this is basically the same concept, there's got to be more to this than that. What's really nice is back in 2019 Dave Grohl and the boys were contemplating the existential ennui of waiting for a war, so by 2020 when the album came out they looked damned near clairvoyant. 

As an album, i gotta say this is perfectly lovely. The concept is kind of all the stuff that might keep you awake at night to the point of either taking some ibuprofen and forcing your brain to shut up, or saying fuck it and getting up and wandering out into the night to do who knows what. It's open enough that you can bring pretty much whatever you personally want into it, and that's lovely. 

It does seem like a bit of a departure for Foo Fighters, much more Pop Rock than i'm accustomed to from their singles (which i universally enjoy). That's the thing, you could play any Foo Fighters song on the radio and everyone would be happy. They weren't the last ginormous mainstream Vanilla Rock band left standing after the decade of dismal for no reason. They deserve every bit of their success. 

I gotta tell you, it's bizarre to feel slightly unenthusiastic about a great album. It feels like i'm a jerk. At the same time though, what is there really to do except say "another great album by Foo Fighters (big shock)?" I'd be thrilled if they had made a bad album, but i doubt they did. That's the trouble with preferring new, independent, obscure, non-mainstream music from the under dogs, you just kinda brush off otherwise awesome stuff. That's my problem, and i know it. So, if G.I. Joe taught me anything, it's that knowing is half the battle, and i therefore assume not hesitating to give it a spin any time it bubbles up to the top of the stack again is a reasonable attempt at the other half. Cheers.