Since every single piece on Foo Fighters must legally include at least one Nirvana mention, why not start this album ranking piece by doing such with a downer (get it?). Despite their legacy as one of the most important and groundbreaking bands of all time, Nirvana only had the chance to release three studio albums. Three! Foo Fighters are obviously better because they have eleven (we don’t count singles, live releases, cover releases, and EPs), and whoever releases the most records wins. Eleven! We don’t make the rules, and, good grief (get it?) you’re wrong if you think any differently. So read on and feast your eyes on the definitive Foo Fighters album rankings.
11. Concrete and Gold (2017)
We can find something that we like about all eleven Foo Fighters albums, but this is the only one in the band’s discography that didn’t inspire a second listen. It’s quite forgettable when compared to the rest of the band’s lush body of work, but the band make(s) it right by featuring Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on the title/closing track. “La dee da.” Thankfully, the band’s next two releases were both more gold than concrete.
Play it again: “The Line”
Skip it: “Run”
10. Sonic Highways (2014)
If you get the chance, watch the eight-part HBO documentary on the creation and recording of “Sonic Highways” before you listen to this record for a proper frame of reference. Or don’t; fuck you. This album has the smallest collection (eight) of songs of any Foos release but still feels a little long, as more than half of the LP contains compositions that clock over five minutes each. This congregation is all for epic feasts, but not at the expense of extraneous and unnecessary segments that should’ve caused multiple famines. Still, “Something from Nothing” is an epic banger.
Play it again: “Something from Nothing”
Skip it: “Subterranean”
9. Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Who would’ve thought that the band that wrote the blistering and screamy mosher “Monkey Wrench” would release a nine-track soulful and danceable record with a song called “Chasing Birds”? Not you! Easily the band’s most polarizing listen, this sleeper record successfully challenges its listeners to not tap their respective feet. Unlike “Sonic Highways,” there is little fat on this concise release that clocks at less than thirty-seven minutes. Ambition is a good thing and we implore you to check this one out if you haven’t done so already.
Play it again: “Making A Fire”
Skip it: “Cloudspotter”
8. In Your Honor (2005)
Fun fact: This album’s title track and several other of its songs were inspired by 2004 Presidential loser candidate (and plus one to the Heinz heiress), John Kerry. It’s true. Fun opinion: If the band made this a single LP instead of a double album, it would’ve ranked higher on this here list. Also, true. Still, another confession to make, the anthemic “Best of You” remains one of the band’s biggest (and most meme-able) songs. P.S. We’re still waiting for the Bernie LP.
Play it again: “No Way Back”
Skip it: “On the Mend”
7. One by One (2002)
All of the punk rock hearts love that this record is Chris Shiflett from No Use For A Name’s (reexamine their entire insanely catchy lengthy catalog) first release with the band, but overall, despite its 2004 Grammy Award win for “Best Rock Album,” it’s an uneven front-to-back listen. Still, “All My Life” may be the band’s best single not called “Everlong,” and the best opening track to ANY rock record. Seriously. Just watch a live video for “All My Life” right now. Another reason to bleed.
Play it again: “All My Life”
Skip it: “Halo”
6. Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace (2007)
Apparently, the hook for “The Pretender,” “Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace’s” opening track, and one of the Foos’ most successful singles, which says a lot as they have quite a few (or foo), was unintentionally (doubtful) and subliminally (possibly) inspired by “Sesame Street.” Don’t quote us, but this may the first time that a Big Bird co-write won a Grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance.” Happily, Germs’ Pat Smear (also formerly Dave Grohl’s bandmate in an early incarnation of the band and for the tail end of Nirvana) guested on this record for one song, being his first since “The Colour and the Shape,” before he joined the band full time again for all others moving forward. Stranger things have happened.
Play it again: “Cheer Up, Boys (Your Makeup is Running)”
Skip it: “Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners”
5. But Here We Are (2023)
For those who lament that these lists typically only highlight each bands’ early releases, suck it. This LP is the band’s saddest release and serves as a memorial to Taylor Hawkins, who left us all way too soon in 2022. On a related note: find the video of Taylor’s teenage son Shane absolutely obliterating the drums for “My Hero” at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. What a tribute.
Play it again: “Rest”
Skip it: We feel guilty about this portion of the article for obvious reasons, but since we were forced to put a song here, it has to be “Beyond Me”
4. Self-Titled (1995)
The readers on this site are likely going to bitch that this album isn’t ranked high enough in this article, so we’re beyond sorry about this “low” nearly bronze metal slot. Good grief, you’re all right and we’re all wrong. Still, we can all agree that this is quite a debut album. Three mega hit singles (“This Is a Call,” “I’ll Stick Around,” and ”Big Me”) that kick off the debut, self-titled record in a perfect one-two-three punch later, who would’ve thought that the band would be around to create ten more albums (and counting) and countless other mainstream singles. In closing, this is without question the first of all albums on this list to contain absolutely no fucking filler.
Play it again: “Exhausted”
Skip it: “Weenie Beenie”
3. There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
“Me, Myself & Irene” might be Jim Carrey’s most underrated film, and “There Is Nothing Left to Lose,” despite its commercial and critical success, is certainly the Foo Fighters’ most underrated album. Like the fun and funny music video for “Breakout” (which features various hilarious scenes in the movie and some new ones in the actual video itself), one can hear it in the songs that the band truly enjoyed the creation of this third (and coincidentally listed as this ranking’s third best) record. Sometimes one needs to go M.I.A., leave Los Angeles, and come home. Let’s close this mention with one more fun fact about “Me, Myself & Irene”: The Offspring cover AFI’s “Total Immortal” during the film’s closing credits. Oh!
Play it again: “Aurora”
Skip it: “Live-In Skin”
2. Wasting Light (2011)
“Back and Forth” is easily one of the best rock documentaries ever created and one of its most appealing components showcases the recording sessions for Foo Fighters’ seventh album, “Wasting Light.” Thank you, Butch Vig. You’re a good producer and shit. Like the aforementioned album “There Is Nothing Left to Lose,” one can hear elation coming through the speakers over the course of all of “Wasting Light’s” killer eleven tracks. These days that is hard to do.
Play it again: “Bridge Burning”
Skip it: “I Should Have Known”
1. The Colour and the Shape (1997)
We still feel bad for Sunny Day Real Estate’s William Goldsmith, but despite its pretentious-ass album title (from one of our favourite American bands), “The Colour and the Shape” is one of the best rock albums of all time. Period and no hyperbole here. The production on the LP is perfect, the songs are beautifully and flawlessly constructed, and the musicianship is so on point it’s scary. Not too bad for a sophomore slump! It would be beyond epic to see this album played front to back.
Play it again: “Doll” and don’t stop till the end. Rinse. Repeat.
Skip it: Again, no filler here but if you hate “The X-Files” movie and songs over 5 minutes, skip “Walking After You ” and listen to the following track that wasn’t in the movie. Fuck you, Gillian Anderson.
After Danny mentions that his wife actually died tragically in a car crash, Joey tries cheering him up by using one of his creepy hand puppets to say that at least she didn’t suffer like “those poor saps near nuclear reactor unit 4 whose skin melted off while their insides boiled,” which he delivered in his signature Popeye voice. WTF?
Danny tells his girls that they can have a puppy as long as they promise to clean up after it, to which Michelle combatively quips, “No way, Jose!” Upon hearing this, Aunt Becky bizarrely responds, “At least we didn’t rescue him from the Pripyat region of Ukraine, otherwise you’d be picking up glowing green turds!” Rumor has it Laurie Loughlin improvised this line and threatened to quit if she couldn’t say it.
Everyone visits Becky in the hospital after she gives birth to twins. Just as the family is enjoying a nice moment together, the precocious neighbor Kimmy Gibler rushes in and feverishly starts counting the fingers and toes on each baby, relieved that they didn’t get “Chernobyl-ed” as she put it. Stephanie then drops a well-timed, “Oh, puh-lease!” which the laugh track absolutely eats it up.
When Uncle Jesse’s grandfather visiting from Greece dies in his sleep, the adults must teach the youngsters about grief. But what most people forget is Jesse being embraced by everyone while proclaiming that the death of his patriarch will always be known as his family’s “Chernobyl,” before adding a lighthearted, “Watch the hair.”
The emotional series finale ends as Michelle finally comes out of her amnesia. As the credits roll for the last time, the words “Our Thanks, Our Love, Chernobyl was a hoax” appear on the screen for some reason, delivering one final unnecessary jab to the victims of the 1986 disaster. How rude!
So we lost the original lead singer, Steve “Zetro” Souza and guitarist Rick Hunolt, so what does this mean for the band? Unfortunately, I’d say this band rushed back into the studio after “Tempo of the Damned” a little prematurely and this is the least Exodus album of them all. Everything about this album feels sloppy, from the album title to the vocals, and even the guitars feel stilted. It feels like no one actually wanted to be there for this album. This album is as clunky as a Shovel Headed Kill Machine must be to drive.
They re-recorded “Bonded By Blood” for some reason, maybe because most of the lineup had changed since 1985. I guess it is kind of an interesting experiment but side-by-side the albums are very similar, so I’m really not sure why this happened. Is this like a high school football player trying to relive his glory days? I mean what’s the point? Not just of this album but of life in general.
This heavier output from the band (just before breaking up for the first time) at times reminds me of C-list mental bands like Ugly Kid Joe and Slaughter but when the tracks hit I would compare them to Megadeth at their best. Every song feels like it is not only from a different album but from a different band. They have truly uncomfortable songs to sit through like a painful cover of Rolling Stones’ “Bitch” only to follow it up with a face melting track like “Fuel for the Fire.” I was worried by the Ralph Steadman inspired cover art that this was going to be a Grunge album like Metallica’s “Load.” This feels like a participation trophy of metal albums.
Oh, I get it, this is their Pantera album. I think that is the problem I am having with Exodus. It is quality thrash metal but I just can’t nail down what “their” sound actually is. Every album sounds like a different band. They really don’t seem to be having as much fun on this album as they did before.
The companion piece to “The Atrocity Exhibition,” I assume. It is clear that the single “Downfalls” is the heart of this album and everything else feels like it was built up around it. Exodus is like the Target Superstore of thrash metal; it’s a good quality product that you can rely on but it doesn’t feel like a name brand. This might be why they struggle to get themselves on the Mount Rushmore of thrash metal. I will give the band credit, they never change their sound with the times, they never attempt to sound like whatever metal-genre-of-the-week is happening at the time, they are thrash through-and-through.
There is something about this album that sounds like if Dead Kennedys were a thrash metal band. While the production is of a much higher quality than “Bonded by Blood” and the riffs start to show some genuine inspiration yet I found the whole album sluggish. They also tack on these throwaway intros that really pull the album down.
This is the cleanest production Exodus has had up to this point. Rob Dukes sounds like he has settled into being the lead singer and Lee Altus is picking up the slack on guitars. Using Exhibit A in the album title comes off as really pompous, like something Tool would do – so I was worried we were going to get something laced with “experimentation” and take themselves too seriously and with almost every track clocking in at over eight minutes there is a bit of hubris involved with this album, but at its core it is an Exodus album and a decent one at that. While a guitar-forward band, I am beginning to think drummer Tom Hunting is the linchpin of this band, looking back at what albums I liked and didn’t like, when Hunting is missing I liked the album less than when he is behind the kit.
Was it worth it to wait 12 years for a new Exodus album? Honestly, yes. The band sounds refreshed and ready to rock again, as opposed to the sluggish “Force of Habit” record. Although, it took me this long to realize that I find that the vocals of Steve “Zetro” Souza just never meld with the band and that I much prefer the OG singer-the late Paul Baloff, who was only recorded with the band on “Bonded by Blood.” Exodus is first and foremost a guitar-driven band, Rick Hunolt and Gary Holt with vocals and lyrics an afterthought. “Tempo of the Damned” does what Exodus does best and that is to let the guitars speak. And don’t worry, not only is the title of the album a dad joke, almost all the track titles are as well.
It turns out this is not a thematic album about the 1993 epic Latino film “Blood In Blood Out: Bound By Honor,” which is disappointing. But I finally figured out what it is that bothers me about Exodus. They are a thrash metal band with a black metal singer. That is why it never really gelled with me. Even so, I now feel that Zestro is a better match with Exodus, after having to deal with listening to Rob Dukes, and I’m glad he’s back on this album. Dare I say that Exodus is getting better with age, like a fine wine.
Exodus definitely does better when the lineup doesn’t change between albums. This album is like a runaway train that only builds up momentum as it goes along. Everyone is firing on all cylinders, this feels like it could be a flagship album for Exodus, and any other metaphor having to do with transportation. This album is also heavier than many of their other albums, even heavier than “Force of Habit,” which lends itself more to Zestro’s sharp vocals. Few bands can say that they’ve existed for 40 years and still put out music as passionate as this album feels.
This is an Exodus album that sounds like Exodus, although one might say there is a lot of Anthrax in this album, or is there an Exodus influence in Anthrax? I am beginning to think the constant lineup changes are what hurt Exodus in the long run. Every album feels almost like a new band. That being said Gary Holt and Rick Hunolt are doing a lot of heavy lifting on every album and they should be applauded for it. That being said, this album is just tons of fun and the band seems to have come (finally) to some kind of cohesion.
Many people say that this album rivals Metallica’s “Kill ‘Em All” and had it come out before Metallica’s debut album that Exodus would be in the Big 4, not Metallica. This is a quality trash album and my only critique is that it lacks the personality that the debuts of bands like Anthrax and Megadeth. This isn’t to say that Exodus peaked with the first album, but god damn this album is technically perfection but I have a hard time pointing to a single track and being like, “That… That right there, that’s Exodus.” But I wonder what would have been had it not been for lineup change after lineup change; would I be able to buy an Exodus t-shirt at Hot Topic instead of Metallica.
Delicate pink and pale blue contrast with dark botanical accents and detailed geometric linework. It’s a look that spells elegance, grace, and a giant hearty “Haha no, I still haven’t managed to even fake my way through the opening riffs of our new single, and with these new talons glued my fingers, you should know I have now officially decided to stop trying.” Welp. Looks like your band will be posting a help wanted ad.
You thought you were playing it safe with this one. Nice, low-key solid color. Reasonable-length rounded tips for safety. No wimpy pastels or anything, and it all still matches your ripped jeans and now-more-duct-tape-than-canvas Converse high tops. Guess what? You still just told everyone your guitar-playing days are finito. Maybe you can learn to sing or something? Just try not to scratch up the mic.
So you’re a dude who tripped a little too hard one day and decided to get iridescent butterflies applied to his nails because of a “vision.” That’s cool, and we totally support that self-expression, man. What we can’t support is how you lied to your bandmates and said you’d practice this week before your show. We hate to say it, but either those butterflies or your guitar strings are gonna break five strums in, tops. And you’ll choose to save the butterflies.
Is it arguably a sorta punk design? Maybe. But even though the songs you’re playing only have two chords, that’s two chords too many now that you’ve got these plastic babies superglued to your digits. And everyone knows it. Poser.
A fantastic look for Pride Weekend. Unfortunately it’s now Monday. You’re hungover, you’re covered in glitter, and you have your guitar lesson in four hours. Just send the kid’s mom whom you teach a pic of this fretboard-busting manicure and they’ll surely understand. Bonus points if you also have the stones to still ask to be paid for this week.
Okay. Apparently even TAB notation for the most basic rendition of “House of the Rising Sun” was too much for you to handle with these raven’s talons attached to your digits. So now you’ve decided you’re going to become physically unable to pick up a guitar pick. Or put in contacts. Or type a text that doesn’t look like drunken gibberish on the first three tries. Nice metallic red color, though.
Sorry, this isn’t even a nice look. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just come out and admit that after you impulsively guitar and told everyone you were starting a band and purchased that app that was going to teach you to play in 90 days, you couldn’t figure out downstrokes and upstrokes and gave up and stuffed the guitar in your closet along with your bread maker and the silk screen kit you never use?
Wow. You really went all out, huh? Hope you enjoy fishing out tiny plastic flowers from your poor guitar’s body when they immediately fall off your nails and start rattling like a poor man’s egg shaker.
Two weeks ago, you had neatly trimmed nails and the will to learn to play guitar. As if these pointy monstrosities didn’t already broadcast that your music dream is kaput, you also had your nail tech file off those finger calluses you’d been building while trying to figure out the F major chord. Come on, it wasn’t that hard!
This blindingly bright metallic design makes a real statement! When you walk into a room, these nails will certainly do the talking. You won’t even need to respond any time someone asks how that guitar playing is coming along. Just raise a single finger and let those eye-poppingly long tips and minuscule sequins shout it out: The ol’ axe is definitely collecting dust in a corner now.
