Formative Albums, Part 4: There Is Nothing Left to Lose
There Is Nothing Left to Lose by Foo Fighters
After having a very sheltered childhood, teenage me followed Weird Al into Smells Like Nirvana into "Okay I think I'm curious about this kind of music, but can I like, hear the original? Out of curiosity?" This was the beginning of what I would later call my "104.7 The Edge" phase. It's such a gloriously shaped-like-itself title that it doesn't even matter if that was a local station that current-day Internet friends and readers wouldn't have had access to; you still know exactly what I'm talking about, and you probably had an exact equivalent in your area. This is where I would fall into deeply regrettable bands like KoRn and Limp Bizkit. This is why, when I share images of my music collection (which I'm still proud of for other, unrelated reasons,) I feel the need to include some sort of "Uh, sorry about the Creed albums though (I was young)" disclaimer.
While I've mostly moved on from that phase, a few acts from that era still hold up, at least in theory. I don't listen to a lot of Pearl Jam or Offspring anymore, but I could, and if I did it would be almost as enjoyable as if I'd never left. Of the albums that still hold up today, I chose this one to encapsulate and represent the whole era. Why? ... Honestly, I don't know. If we're being honest with ourselves, it probably should have been Nirvana's Nevermind. That's what started it all, right? I felt like that one was too obvious and overdone, though. That's the low-hanging choice that everyone who makes a list like this is going to pick, like putting Super Metroid and/or Ocarina of Time on your all-time favorite games list. So, here we are with this one instead, because I really liked it then and I still really like it now.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose is an interesting album. Immediately following The Colour and the Shape, I somehow was under the impression that this was an overshadowed "oh yeah, they have this one too I guess" footnote of the band's history that *I* happened to like, anyway. I have a tendency to latch onto albums like that, you see. (I similarly list Pearl Jam's Riot Act, Offspring's Conspiracy of One, and Helloween's Rabbit Don't Come Easy among my favorites.) Doing some research, though, I guess that's not actually true? It went platinum and got them a Grammy. Huh. Well, then. I mean, this is the album that brought us "Learn to Fly," so that makes sense. I guess I probably should have seen that coming.
Anyway, the backstory behind this one was that they had severely burnt themselves out working on Colour, so Dave Grohl bought a house in Virginia and he and his band put this one together while resting, relaxing, and dinking around with it whenever they happened to be in the mood. Songs like "Ain't It the Life" more or less capture the mood the band was in at the time, and do a very good job conveying said mood to the listener as well. Grohl lists it as one of his favorite albums and the only one that instantly takes him back to that whole mood and house and time of his life when he listens to it again. The fact that it was such a huge success (apparently?) without anyone having to kill themselves over it is... hmm. There's probably a lesson in there, somewhere. Hmmm.
Well. That's something to think about some other time. If you'll excuse me, I need to go sit in the corner and fret over all the projects I need to make updates for before my customary five hours of sleep. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/468813.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.