Review #5: Foo Fighters - Greatest Hits

Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: Greatest Hits (2009)
Genre: Rock
Length: 16 tracks / 1:03:48

This may be my most challenging review. It's a "Greatest Hits" album. The best of the best. Or so they say. This is a collaboration of 12 of the Foo's biggest hits, 2 live performances, and 2 new tracks. Also, this is one of the few albums in my collection I didn't purchase: it was a Christmas gift in 2009. Needless to say, though, I was happy to get it. Anyway, I digress, let's start.

This is an album I've listened to many times at work, as well as heard many of the songs on the radio, so this one was done quickly as well. The Foo's have a solid catalogue, but sometimes the songs they release just aren't the best. case in point is this album. Some of the songs on this from their past days still hold the test of time like Everlong and Monkey Wrench and even the newer songs still hold the excitement as they did when they were released; namely, The Pretender. However, this compilation suffers from the same issue that Fantasies, by Metric, did: the second half does nothing to support the first half of the album. Layered with popular tracks from the Foos' 6 albums, the first half is a kicking listen. The second half, on the contrary, has maybe one good track from other albums, and the live stuff and the new tracks just don't live up to the potential the first half gave. Especially with a Greatest Hits, a band should layer their best songs along the whole album; sprinking a couple tracks near the beginning, adding some meat to the middle, and closing it with another neckbreaker. This compilation just sandwiches all the meat on one end, but leaves the rest bare. Not very tasty, is it?

I'm also going to be honest, I'm not the biggest Foo's fan. I love the songs of their's I like, but everything else of their's fails to captivate me as such. I love the aforementioned Everlong, Monkey Wrench, The Pretender and whatnot, but with the exception of these few tracks (all represented on here), there was nothing I hadn't heard that I liked. All the new stuff, or songs I hadn't heard of theirs fell short to my ears and does not make for the best album for me. I'm also not a fan of Greatest Hits albums as I'm picky about how my music is sorted and I will actually go as far as to find the correct album, track number, etc, to finish the sorting. I have yet to do so, but it has happened (case in point: Megadeth and The Offspring) so it's only a matter of time. But that's just a beef with the album concept itself. I'd play the first half to get into it, but I'd stop after track 8.

TREVOR'S FAVOURITE SONG: Best of You
Oh dear Lord, where to start. This was the part I was looking forward to the least as there's so many choices. It fluctuates all of the time, but I'd have to say Best of You is my favourite at the time of this review. It's a mixture of so many things: ballad, hard rock song, one where you want to be arm-in-arm with folks swaying, headbanger, this song is also an emotional hitter for me. Do you ever have those people that you had a bad experience with and had a falling out with, but you don't want anything bad to happen to them and hope they move on in the right direction? This song does this for me.

RECOMMENDED TRACKS:
All My Life [Track 1]
Best of You [Track 2]
Everlong [Track 3]
The Pretender [Track 4]
My Hero [Track 5]
Monkey Wrench [Track 8]
*Borderline recommendation(s)*
Long Road To Ruin [Track 11]

Final Grade: 7.7 | B-
The goods songs are fantastic. Everything else just doesn't cut it. Especially the live performances and the new tracks.