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. As an album, however, Sonic Highways definitely ranks among the least essential Foo Fighters records. The songs feel like they were made solely for the sake of the TV show, rather than the other way around.
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 Foos 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.
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—you have loud rock songs, and you have quiet rock songs, and all the other volumes in between.
6. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
This record begins with one of the band’s most rawk numbers, “The Pretender.” 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 Foos’ 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 Foo Fighters album to spin off massive radio-dominating hits. 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.” The appeal, again, is a time-and-place thing. There Is Nothing Left To Lose was released in 1999, the last innocent year in the history of mankind, and it sounds like it.
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 defined by shiny-as-hell guitars, loud-as-hell drums, and impossible-to-resist hooks. It remains one of the most successful and influential mainstream rock albums of its era.
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. In comparison to the future albums, it almost sounds quirky—like Paul McCartney after The Beatles, Grohl set about to make an album of low-key pop songs by himself.
