This week, Foo Fighters will release their 12th album, Your Favorite Toy. The news prompted a startling moment of self-discovery: Is it possible that I have opinions on every Foo Fighters album? Alas, not only opinions, but also the wherewithal to rank these records? Shockingly, the answer to both questions appears to be a resounding yes.
That last question will have to wait for another day. For now, let’s talk Foos!
11. Medicine To Midnight (2021)
I mean it with the utmost respect when I compare Dave Grohl's work with the Foo Fighters to the culinary skills of the local lunch lady at the neighborhood school cafeteria. It's his job to make different dishes with the same basic ingredients. Foo Fighters albums are the equivalent of a menu where a revolving selection of tacos, spaghetti, meat loaf, beef stroganoff, and hot dish make the most of a root supply of protein and starches. Medicine To Midnight is the Foo Fighters' version of tofu casserole—an attempt to shake up the menu that, while not terrible, remains instantly forgettable.
10. Sonic Highways (2014)
Dave's apparent fascination with location really came to a head in the early 2010s. With 2013's Sound City, he profiled the iconic LA recording studio where Nirvana made Nevermind. The following year, he masterminded the six-episode HBO series Sonic Highways, where he visited different American music towns and recorded a new Foo Fighters track in each one. As an album, however, Sonic Highways definitely ranks among the least essential, as the songs feel like they were made solely for the sake of the TV show.
9. Concrete And Gold (2017)
I decided that any album with at least one single that's been played approximately 12 trillion times on rock radio would automatically rank higher than any album without a song like that. This album came out in the era when Grohl was solidly installed as the mayor of rock music, a point in his career when he didn't necessarily need hits to sell concert tickets.
8. But Here We Are (2023)
The best of the "no actual hits" albums. The obvious hook of But Here We Are was being the first Foo Fighters album since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins. As horrible and tragic as Hawkins' death was, it did put a creative fire under Grohl and his band for the first time in over a decade. The jangly, Beatlesque melodies are reminiscent of There Is Nothing Left To Lose, one of their sharpest albums.
7. In Your Honor (2005)
Foo Fighters' version of The White Album. On disc one, you have "Rock" Dave, and on disc two, it's "Acoustic" Dave. In Your Honor covers the entire spectrum of his songwriting styles. Over on the rock side is the best-known track, "Best Of You," which was covered two years later by Prince at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
6. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
This record begins with one of the band's most rawk numbers, "The Pretender," along with the slightly less adenoidal "Long Run To Ruin." But it also extends the singer-songwriter impulses of In Your Honor, like on the Dave-goes-Nebraska track "Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners."
5. One By One (2002)
One By One came out of a tumultuous period in the band's history. When they originally made it, it allegedly sounded so lifeless that their management expressed misgivings about even putting it out. Eventually, they got it together and ripped out a new version in just one week, including the two most winning songs, "Times Like These" and "All My Life."
4. Wasting Light (2011)
Typically regarded as the last great Foo Fighters album. It's inarguably the last to spin off massive radio-dominating hits. In this case, "Rope" and "Walk" are definitively Foos-esque. By Wasting Light, Foo Fighters had firmly put a lot of real estate between Grohl and his former band, to the point where they seemed almost wholly unrelated to that group.
3. There Is Nothing Left To Lose (1999)
The actual "last great Foo Fighters album." Released in 1999, the last innocent year in the history of mankind, it sounds like it. Even when Dave gets vicious—like the album-opening "Stacked Actors," one of the many songs possibly about his lifelong nemesis Courtney Love—the music delivers carefree escapism.
2. The Colour And The Shape (1997)
Their second album, but, really, their actual first album. Working with Gil Norton, Grohl built the definitive post-grunge Wall Of Sound. That Foo Fighters managed to survive and thrive during the age of nü-metal, when pretty much every other alt-rock institution from the early '90s withered, is an achievement that can't be underestimated. It features "Everlong," still his finest artistic accomplishment.
1. Foo Fighters (1995)
I grew up on Nirvana, and I've matured along with Grohl, and the self-titled debut remains, easily, their most likeable and re-listenable album. It was an alt-hit Buzz Bin machine: "This Is A Call," "I'll Stick Around," "Big Me," and "Alone + Easy Target." There was a brief moment when this band actually seemed like an underdog, but here we are.