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PPPs. They were off their rockers beforehand, and I promise to not use any more “rocker” puns until my blog hits at least double digit entries.
PPPPs. I always though Dana Carvey’s “Choppin’ Broccoli” Saturday Night Live skit referenced Frédéric Chopin. I can’t believe the Internet is telling me I dreamed the whole thing up. They were both virtuoso pianists. Who’s with me?
PPPPPs. Every time my spell check turns Foo Fighters into Food Fighters I think of that scene from Animal House…
Hey baby won't you take a chance?
Say that you'll let me have this dance
Well let's dance, well let's dance
We'll do the twist, the stomp, the mashed potato too,
Any old dance that you wanna do
But let's dance, well let's dance
From the album There Is Nothing Left To Lose, Breakout isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I actually listened to the song a few days ago, and I can’t remember anything about it (more on that later).
With the fear of publishing my first two-sentence entry staring me squarely in the face, I've thought long and hard about something clever to write. To top it off, I have a dear friend who loves the Foo Fighters. And this friend is highly supportive of my blogging endeavor. I couldn’t just give the Foo Fighters short shrift…not when there are likely more entries in my blog than there are readers of it.
I’ll give you that Dave Grohl must be doing something right. As the drummer for Nirvana, he was 1/3 of one of the most influential musical acts of the 20th century. And his role as lead vocalist, guitarist, and front man for the Foo Fighters has certainly been commercially successful. But I never got on that post-Cobain train. The Foo Fighters formed just as my college experience came to a close. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the mid-nineties and my graduation marked a dramatic change in my music of choice. While Nirvana ranks high on my list, the Foo Fighters came into the world a little too late in my evolutionary process.
Rather than dismiss them based on Breakout or my personal path to musical enlightenment (I’m like a quarter of the way there), I took a couple days to consider the Foo Fighters’ place in the pantheon. I thought about musicians and how time is a form of natural selection for all songs and artists. I quickly decided I wasn’t necessarily concerned with whether the Foo Fighters, or more specifically Breakout, will stand the test of time. I had landed on something of greater import. I mean pushed to form an opinion, my snap response would have been…
Breakout – not gonna happen
Foo Fighters – When the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars (sorry for the cheap 5th Dimension reference; believe it or not, that song came up in a work meeting earlier this week…strictly top of mind…I beg your pardon)
All kidding aside, it became obvious that the question of longevity isn’t really meaningful in two dimensions. You have to add time to the equation, don’t you? If we ask whether Breakout has stood the test of time, I would argue no. If we ask whether the Foo Fighters have stood the test of time, I would contend that they have. But where will the Foo Fighters stack up in 2030? In 2330?
I took a music appreciation class my senior year in college. We did the usual suspects – Brahms, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. But for every Franz Liszt, there has to have been a Foo Fighter or two that didn’t make it over the past 150 years. Old Franz was probably blowing up Hungary with his dope 1850s rhymes while some poor schlub was always composing in his shadow. Who can say if Liszt was embroiled in some East Side/West Side style composer rivalry that time has forgotten? Who can say if Hungary has distinct east and west sides? Liszt is celebrated in college courses, a 1970s movie starring Roger Daltrey (lead vocalist for The Who), and by the recent Phoenix hit Lisztomania (the band is a current favorite of mine; please tell me they’re not really French). Meanwhile, Mr. Poor Schlub’s best press these days is my nameless shout-out in this seven-day-old blog.
I use to think that artists from the past were more talented. At the very least, they must have been more discerning about the music they released. In my humble opinion, most of my classic rock is cover-to-cover great. But isn’t that because time filtered out the less successful music? Isn’t that what makes it “classic” rock? A whole bunch of people before me "suffered" through a whole bunch of other music on my behalf. I like Led Zeppelin II for a number of reasons. And I like every track. But I only had access to Led Zeppelin II in seventh grade because it had enough momentum to make it 16 years after its release. There was plenty of other music released in 1969, but I will never listen to most of it. What fans there were of that other music have moved on. What mass appeal it may have had has dwindled. So much so that it didn’t make it to 1985 with enough momentum to make my list. When I sat down for my first listen to Page and Plant those other bands were on (or headed for) the scrap pile of history. And not just because of my musical inclinations. I have a lot of other people to thank for delivering the classics my way. I turned that double-length blank cassette into Led Zeppelin II on one side and Led Zeppelin IV on the other because time had filtered other bands and albums out of the equation. One day, I want partial credit for delivering Milli Vanilli the same fate.
On another note, maybe the Foo Fighters string those royalty checks out a little further because technology is their friend. Media is preserved in digital formats these days. Every time I sit down to watch the Oscars they’re talking about films from the 1930s that are literally turning into dust because they haven’t been preserved or converted to binary code. I have my own personal demons when it comes to techno-hoarding. I have fifteen thousand songs, ten thousand photos, and contact information for everyone I’ve met since I was three. If I lived in a house like my laptop, I’d wind up on one of those Oprah specials where the guest digs out half of her house only to find a pallet of Chinese finger puzzles she bought in 1974 because “they might come in handy one day.” My OCD aside, the fact that digitized artifacts consume less and less physical space and experience less degradation than their predecessors surely means that they are inherently granted more staying power. If my parents had handed me 15,000 songs like I might do for my daughter one day, where would I have kept the 1200+ vinyl LPs? Do the Foo Fighters stand a fighting chance because they’re literally harder to destroy? Probably so. But there are only so many hours in the day. And as this blog is proving, you can only listen to so much music in those 24 hours. Due to technology, Grohl may last longer than a comparable talent from the 1960s, but he’ll be Kurt Cobain’s schlub in good measure.
Ps. David Groh was apparently an actor best known for his roll on Rhoda. I have no idea what that means.
PPs. Speaking of the Age of Aquarius, did you see that some guy changed the zodiac the other day? How does that work? Apparently, I’m now an Aries. I’ve spent my whole life working the Taurus angle and trying to reconcile my sign with the whole "Year of the Rat" thing only to have this come along? Maybe the Zodiac Killer was ahead of his time - leaving the clues to his capture hopelessly out of reach until now. Are Nancy Reagan and Dion Warwick off their rockers with this unsettling news?
I’ll give you that Dave Grohl must be doing something right. As the drummer for Nirvana, he was 1/3 of one of the most influential musical acts of the 20th century. And his role as lead vocalist, guitarist, and front man for the Foo Fighters has certainly been commercially successful. But I never got on that post-Cobain train. The Foo Fighters formed just as my college experience came to a close. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the mid-nineties and my graduation marked a dramatic change in my music of choice. While Nirvana ranks high on my list, the Foo Fighters came into the world a little too late in my evolutionary process.
Rather than dismiss them based on Breakout or my personal path to musical enlightenment (I’m like a quarter of the way there), I took a couple days to consider the Foo Fighters’ place in the pantheon. I thought about musicians and how time is a form of natural selection for all songs and artists. I quickly decided I wasn’t necessarily concerned with whether the Foo Fighters, or more specifically Breakout, will stand the test of time. I had landed on something of greater import. I mean pushed to form an opinion, my snap response would have been…
Breakout – not gonna happen
Foo Fighters – When the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars (sorry for the cheap 5th Dimension reference; believe it or not, that song came up in a work meeting earlier this week…strictly top of mind…I beg your pardon)
All kidding aside, it became obvious that the question of longevity isn’t really meaningful in two dimensions. You have to add time to the equation, don’t you? If we ask whether Breakout has stood the test of time, I would argue no. If we ask whether the Foo Fighters have stood the test of time, I would contend that they have. But where will the Foo Fighters stack up in 2030? In 2330?
I took a music appreciation class my senior year in college. We did the usual suspects – Brahms, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. But for every Franz Liszt, there has to have been a Foo Fighter or two that didn’t make it over the past 150 years. Old Franz was probably blowing up Hungary with his dope 1850s rhymes while some poor schlub was always composing in his shadow. Who can say if Liszt was embroiled in some East Side/West Side style composer rivalry that time has forgotten? Who can say if Hungary has distinct east and west sides? Liszt is celebrated in college courses, a 1970s movie starring Roger Daltrey (lead vocalist for The Who), and by the recent Phoenix hit Lisztomania (the band is a current favorite of mine; please tell me they’re not really French). Meanwhile, Mr. Poor Schlub’s best press these days is my nameless shout-out in this seven-day-old blog.
I use to think that artists from the past were more talented. At the very least, they must have been more discerning about the music they released. In my humble opinion, most of my classic rock is cover-to-cover great. But isn’t that because time filtered out the less successful music? Isn’t that what makes it “classic” rock? A whole bunch of people before me "suffered" through a whole bunch of other music on my behalf. I like Led Zeppelin II for a number of reasons. And I like every track. But I only had access to Led Zeppelin II in seventh grade because it had enough momentum to make it 16 years after its release. There was plenty of other music released in 1969, but I will never listen to most of it. What fans there were of that other music have moved on. What mass appeal it may have had has dwindled. So much so that it didn’t make it to 1985 with enough momentum to make my list. When I sat down for my first listen to Page and Plant those other bands were on (or headed for) the scrap pile of history. And not just because of my musical inclinations. I have a lot of other people to thank for delivering the classics my way. I turned that double-length blank cassette into Led Zeppelin II on one side and Led Zeppelin IV on the other because time had filtered other bands and albums out of the equation. One day, I want partial credit for delivering Milli Vanilli the same fate.
On another note, maybe the Foo Fighters string those royalty checks out a little further because technology is their friend. Media is preserved in digital formats these days. Every time I sit down to watch the Oscars they’re talking about films from the 1930s that are literally turning into dust because they haven’t been preserved or converted to binary code. I have my own personal demons when it comes to techno-hoarding. I have fifteen thousand songs, ten thousand photos, and contact information for everyone I’ve met since I was three. If I lived in a house like my laptop, I’d wind up on one of those Oprah specials where the guest digs out half of her house only to find a pallet of Chinese finger puzzles she bought in 1974 because “they might come in handy one day.” My OCD aside, the fact that digitized artifacts consume less and less physical space and experience less degradation than their predecessors surely means that they are inherently granted more staying power. If my parents had handed me 15,000 songs like I might do for my daughter one day, where would I have kept the 1200+ vinyl LPs? Do the Foo Fighters stand a fighting chance because they’re literally harder to destroy? Probably so. But there are only so many hours in the day. And as this blog is proving, you can only listen to so much music in those 24 hours. Due to technology, Grohl may last longer than a comparable talent from the 1960s, but he’ll be Kurt Cobain’s schlub in good measure.
Ps. David Groh was apparently an actor best known for his roll on Rhoda. I have no idea what that means.
PPs. Speaking of the Age of Aquarius, did you see that some guy changed the zodiac the other day? How does that work? Apparently, I’m now an Aries. I’ve spent my whole life working the Taurus angle and trying to reconcile my sign with the whole "Year of the Rat" thing only to have this come along? Maybe the Zodiac Killer was ahead of his time - leaving the clues to his capture hopelessly out of reach until now. Are Nancy Reagan and Dion Warwick off their rockers with this unsettling news?
PPPPs. I always though Dana Carvey’s “Choppin’ Broccoli” Saturday Night Live skit referenced Frédéric Chopin. I can’t believe the Internet is telling me I dreamed the whole thing up. They were both virtuoso pianists. Who’s with me?
PPPPPs. Every time my spell check turns Foo Fighters into Food Fighters I think of that scene from Animal House…
Hey baby won't you take a chance?
Say that you'll let me have this dance
Well let's dance, well let's dance
We'll do the twist, the stomp, the mashed potato too,
Any old dance that you wanna do
But let's dance, well let's dance
Bro,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Cobain's impact and talent def. rate him at the Liszt level, I wouldn't dismiss Dave Grohl's abilities so quickly.
Grohl is a well-rounded musician; he writes and arranges all the music/vocals for basically every piece of music with the FF label on it. Plus, he's played/plays every instrument in the recording studio for their albums.
And the music, when done right, rocks. His songs feature flowing melodies and crunching crescendos; I still get goosebumps listening to Everlong. I think that hard/soft mix works for a lot of the listening public.
Part of your criticism is warranted; his songs (lyrically or structurally) aren't ground-breaking. Yet he suffers from working in Cobain's shadow, much like Salieri did in Mozart's. Or, for a more timely comparison, he's like a modern-day Tom Petty, a solid rock musician who delivers the goods on time, every time. No, he's not a virtuso; but he's still a pretty damn good musician.
PS: If you like 70's classic rock ALBUMS like Led II - collection of songs that works really well together - go back and listen to "There is Nothing Left to Lose" from start to finish, in the order set by Grohl. It's FF's best album, hands down, and representative of the skill level that I reference above.
PPS: There is a Simpsons episode w/ Bart and Lisa embodying the roles of Mozart and Salieri, respectively.