Foo Fighters - There's Nothing Left To Lose - CD Review by Justin Dylan Renney

Bad & Co., T-Rex. Peter Frampton comes alive. Dave Grohl goes solo (divorce). Dave leaves Seattle. Dave moves to Los Angeles. Dave is a free man. Dave Starts seeing Veruca Salt's guitarist Louise Post. They break up. Dave is disgusted and jaded, but must work and L.A. sucks. Dave has a fight with Capitol about the contract. Foo Fighters get signed to RCA. Dave and Foo Guitarist Franz Stahl (who were both in the D.C. band Scream together) have a falling out, Franz quits. Dave has a revelation, moves to Virginia and listens to all his old vinyl from Jr. High. Dave builds a studio in his house. Dave is finally happy. I guess what I'm getting at here is that Mr. Grohl & Co. are willing to dig deep and grab "The Big Rock" and bring it back for the people. Hence, the Bad & Co., Frampton, Wings, and other late, late 70's/Early 80's riffs and "vocal" techniques..

But.

These flagrant hockey-style fouls everyone is talking about only occur on three tracks. There is a fast forward button for a reason. Here is my rebuttal, line item.

1. Stacked Actors: Classic dirty, dirty Foo guitars with a lounge twist. Saw this performed on Saturday Night Live last week and it glued me to the set.

Stack dead actors, stacked to the rafters / Line up the bastards all I want is the truth

Hey, hey now can you fake it / Can you make it look like we want

Hey, hey now can you take it / And we all cry when they all die blonde

2. Breakout: Classic Late 70's Rock Pop. Ala Wings. Ala Bad & Co.. What was that late-night infomercial called? STOP THE TORTURE!

3. Learn to Fly: The debut single. Too damn catchy for its own good. A funny video to go with it from the same director that brought you the "Footos" (Mentos) video "Big Me".

Dave's reasons for moving to Virginia revealed:

I'm looking for complication / Looking cause I'm tired of trying (lying)

4. Gimme Stitches: Late 70's Groove Rock. Very bass driven. Very much of "The Colour and The Shape". Did I mention Nate Mendel is the coolest bass player left in town. Sorry Joe "Bass" Skyward. He's so cool his favorite Kool-Aid flavor is green. Don't ask how I know ...

5. Generator: Peter Frampton comes alive! Dave get that thing out of your mouth!

Fast forward please.

6. Aurora: Ala Gary Numan, Ala "Floaty" (from "Foo Fighters"). The guitar effects on this one are much like the Numan cover they did in '96 for the X-Files soundtrack. All chorusy and kinda dirty, then keeps building and building like a starburst fruit chew. This is not a song about the street named Aurora. Sorry.

7. Live in Skin: Down and Dirty Big Rock. Give the people what they need.

8. Next Year: Dave is griping about "The Road" again.

9. Headwires: Gary Numan strikes again. Breathy vocals, then punch-distortion Nirvana. ahhh.

10. Ain't It the Life: Upon first listen you think Dave has gone off to "Save The Music" with Shania Twain and the rest of VH1. But this breezy pop number more like a clip from Fight Club except instead of a breakdown of why Ikea and Pottery Barn are EVIL, Dave sits in a Los Angeles bar and proceeds to rip a new one into their alien ubermall existence.

11. MIA: Grohl knows how to end an album. On "Foo Fighters" it was about Kurt. On "The Colour and The Shape" is was about Courtney and other Seattle-transplant leeches. On "There is Nothing Left to Lose" it's all about leaving all of Seattle and Los Angeles and the Ex-Wife behind. In MIA he means it.

Nevermind the mannequins / drunken in their hollow town

Drinking their spoils down, cheap imitations / The revelation is now

You won't find me I'm going MIA / Tonight I'm leaving going MIA...

There is Nothing Left to Lose is not a disappointment. It is musical growth. It's all about growing up and not looking back. It's all about going back to that place where everything is right, and you have your green Panasonic turntable with the BIG radio knobs.. If Foo Fighters was an extension of Nirvana, then "There is Nothing Left to Lose" is a complete separation from that vein of music. O.k. maybe from MIA you can hear a twinge of The Grunge, but that's about it... Face it everyone. 1999 is here and almost gone. Big Rock is back. Cheerleaders are popular the way they used to be. Football players make computer geeks do their homework. The Seattle Movement (as Axl Rose called it last week on MTV) is over. Bring on the new bands, bring on the space rock.

Email Justin Dylan Renney

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