My feelings, relationship and memories of the albums I've loved. is often specifically related to the format which I initially bought them in. My first and true loves, are ones I generally have in vinyl format. Bought from the early Eighties to the early Nineties or else in the last ten years. My CD phase, from about 1993 to 2010 where I made lesser connections and less deep loves before I was reunited with my record collection and bought another player.
Then there was my short lived cassette period 1994 to 1996 during a couple of phases where I lived in Warsaw. There were a couple of pirate stalls on Marzalkowska one of the main thoroughfares of the city, I bought a few that meant and still mean a lot to me. Nas's Illmatic, Radiohead's The Bends, and this, the first, and in my opinion by far the best album by Foo Fighters.
To place this within a context you need to be taken back to those times. The death of Kurt Cobain was incredibly tough to deal with for anybody who cared about him and Nirvana. It was one Rock star death that far transcended his immediate friend and family circle because of what the music he and Nirvana made had meant to so many.
So imgine what it must have been like for Dave Grohl, drummer of that band. He had joined Kurt and Krist Novolesic just before Nevermind was recorded and they launched themselves on that tidal wave that changed them and music once and for all.
It doesn't often happen and it had all appeared to be so much fun for a short while. Revenge of the meek, the freak and the geek. Whatever you want to call it. But that sense of pure joy didn't last for long. Kurt wasn't built to last and once he met Courtney and Nevermind was released and blew everything open, the trajectory was pretty much set. The die cast. He was gone a couple of short years later.
It must have been an utterly appalling experience for Grohl. Essentially an optimist to Kurt's essential pessimist. He wondered for a while apparently whether he ever wanted to make music again and no wonder.
Eventually he returned to the studio to lay down some tracks he'd written which he recorded and played himself, (playing pretty much every instrument you hear on the record) as a carthartic experience, a heartfelt but necessary process of trying to recover the joy.
It's still a wonderful listen, more than twenty five years on. The sound of Grohl's own poppy expression of his first great musical love. Minor Threat, Husker Du, Minutemen, Sonic Youth the sound of the Eighties American Underground realised in Pop sunlight.
The record has some light and shade. Last track Exhausted is the only one that seems directly related to Nirvana, expressing some of Kurt's eternally depressive undertow. Elsewhere Grohl is straining every sinew to surface and a lot of people who were hit hard by Kurt's loss would have been cheering him on.
I was one of those. This wasn't perhaps the best period of my life. I didn't have the most confidence in myself and experienced a nasty and painful break up during this time. I'm sure Foo Fighters helped me more than once during this time. It's an expression of recovery, pretty much more so than any rother album I can immediately call to mind.
Nothing Dave Grohl has done has touched me as much since. He's not one to lay himself bare easily and though Foo Fighters have made plenty of great Pop / Rock records since I've never been particularly drawn to listen to them. This is more than enough for me. It still sounds just great. Perhaps I need to hunt myself down a vinyl version to confirm my love.
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