[Music] Foo Fighters – The Colour and The Shape
October 14, 2011
Basically nothing
My expectations for this album went both ways. On one hand, this is considered the band’s best, a general masterpiece of the Post-Grunge era and it gave the band their actual breakout. On the other hand, I remember trying to listen to “Monkey Wrench” and finding it repulsive, just from the first minute, and some of the song titles, “See You”, “Up in Arms” and “New Way Home” seemed to confirm that the songs were written with the passion of a coffe making machine. Then there’s simpy the fact this is a Foo Fighters album, and they’re simply all around terrible. This was going to be fun.
I may get a kick out of bitchin’ about the Fighters, but I don’t enjoy finding them so bad. I’m not an anti-mainstream person, and I love good Radio-Rock. I would’ve preferred to see in the Foos what everyone sees and get a decent supply of catchy Hard Rock tracks. It’s just that Foo Fighters make the worst kind of Hard Rock – A polite, down-to-earth and colourless version of it, with no adolescent fantasies or a sense of self-importance. If I wanted to listen to something like that, I’d listen to Pop or Country. It sounds right there. In Hard Rock, these elements make for something offensively bland.
But that’s not the real problem with this album. There’s so many that I’d rather talk about the few good things, just to lighten up the mood. The Colour is more adventutous than both their debut and its two successors. More musical ideas are tried rather than simply “another rock song”, the sonic pallet is wider and there’s a general sense of a band testing their limits, rather than simply churning out songs. It also has one song that is genuinely good, one I can return to and means I may give this another chance. That’s “Hey, Johnny Park!” which is a simply, melodic midtempo Post-Grunge rocker that could’ve been written by countless faceless bands. Dave, for a change, sounds okay with the song. “Everlong” is also decent, but it’s held back by a band who thinks the purpose of this song is to rock. Grohl can’t convey the emotional vulnerability that song expresses. It has an excellent melody in the verses and a decent chorus, but if Local H, who are experts in sounding like lost teenagers, made it, it would’ve been a classic. “February Stars” is along the same lines only with a weaker melody. It’s a bit touching, but the band sounds too calculated, like what they had in mind was not the feelings the song expresses but the blueprint for such a ballad.
This is where the positive ends and where I go back to kicking this album. Dave Grohl may have the worst scream in rock history. I also happen to hate Cobain’s screaming, but at least Cobain sounded like he was angry when he shouted. Annoying, but also engaging. Dave Grohl’s screaming are devoid of any hints of anger – and I know I’ve run this point into the ground but try to bear with me. “Monkey Wrench” is pretty awful song all the way through, but it hits a new low in the “intense” part, where Grohl’s scream become louder and louder. It’s so unconvincing, and is a perfect example of the “calculated” approach I’m talking about. He screams not because he’s angry but because he thinks this type of song needs it. There’s also him shouting “I’m not scared!”, at the end of the final track (“New Way Home”) which tries hard to sound profound, fails, and ends up unintentionally hilarious but also very awkward. The other tracks that are based around the band being loud ‘n’ heavy – “Wind Up” and “Enough Space”, sound like throwaway B-Sides the band wrote in their sleep.
Their attempts at Power Pop are only slightly better. They sound more like they’re mocking Fountains of Wayne than anything else. “Up in Arms” starts calmly before repeating itself, only faster. It’s an amusing idea but the sections don’t really glue together, and so you get another throwaway B-Side. “See You” has a decent melody somewhere, but it’s still doesn’t sound like a cute pop song. Grohl still sounds like he helms a big loud Rock band in it, and that drains it of its charm. I respect the band for stretching their sound a bit, but when the result are so poor, it was preferrable if they simply cut and pasted “My Hero”. That wouldn’t make the album good. That song is darn boring and has no direction, but it’s a lot less annoying.
The Colour and The Shape is at once a step in the right direction and a terrible album. The Foos may attempt to stretch their sound, but they were too immature at this point to succeed in it. It was better for them if they attempted to rewrite “Everlong” and “Hey, Johnny Park!” and sharpen their skills. That is eventually what they did, and they did make a few good songs that are worth your time (“Stacked Actors” or “Low”). If The Colour proved anything to me, it proved that the problem with the Foos is not their bland and unoriginal sound. It’s just they’re really bad at that sound too. At least they spared us any more songs like “Enough Space”, and this album does have their first song I really liked and I guess that counts for something.
Highs: Two songs are pretty good, the band is stretching their sound
Lows: Full of terrible songs performed by a bad band
Rating: 1.5/5
