YMMV / Foo Fighters

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• Broken Base:
  • The group has a significant amount of fans who like their first two albums and don't like the others, who are very much a Vocal Minority. The base is more broken with regards to the group's more recent records, with some saying the likes of Concrete and Gold are lazy and a shadow of their former selves, and others saying that the group's softer direction is a sign of maturity.
  • After the band refused to let their songs be featured on Glee, their fandom experienced mild turmoil over whether or not it was a good thing. Not that it particularly bothered Taylor Hawkins; his response to Glee in general was "Fuck that shit."
• Epic Riff: "Monkey Wrench", the talk box intro of "Generator", "Good Grief", "Everlong", "The Pretender", "All My Life", "Stacked Actors", "Hey, Johnny Park!", "Rope", and the ever popular "Best of You".
• First Installment Wins: Among fans, their debut album, sophomore effort, and their third album, There is Nothing Left to Lose, were the band at the top of their game. Sometimes Wasting Light sneaks in.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Their native US has Nirvana's shadow hanging over the band much thicker than elsewhere in the world. Whilst they sell many records and play arenas in the US, their popularity there is nothing compared to that in the UK, where in recent years they have sold out massive outdoor shows in minutes, months in advance. By Dave's own admission, the UK treats them like they are "the biggest band in the world", and while he can walk around cities like Los Angeles largely unrecognized, he gets mobbed on the streets in the UK.
  • In the There Is Nothing Left To Lose period, they were more popular in Australia than anywhere else. They cemented this popularity when they toured there and performed at Big Day Out, and even released a special edition with a popular Australian swimmer on the cover and including an extra track, "Fraternity".
  • Literally with 'Wheels'. Dave has mentioned on several occasions that apparently Germany is the only country where they can play the song with the crowd singing along. Most American crowds tend to be bored and most Asian crowds aren't bothered with it.
  • They also have a huge following in Italy, so much so that one thousand musicians (calling themselves the Rockin' 1000) got together in a group to play "Learn to Fly", all in order to invite the Foo Fighters to hold a concert there. The Foo Fighters did go and perform there along with several of the participants after seeing the result.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Who would you least like to see naked? Any member of my band."
  • The line "Learning to walk again" from "Walk" took on a whole new meaning after Dave broke his leg in 2015. While it could also be considered Harsher in Hindsight, his pretty much nonchalant reaction to his ordeal makes it more hilarious than harsh.
  • Pat Smear was a member of The Germs, a punk rock band who were around during the time when the Disco Sucks mindset was prominent amongst rock fans. Fast-forward to 2021 where Pat participated in the creation of the disco cover album Hail Satin.
• I Knew It!: Without a permanent drummer announced, fans suspected that Dave Grohl had recorded drum tracks on But Here We Are in Taylor Hawkins' absence, something proven correct during a conversation with Grohl and new drummer Josh Freese during a Veeps livestream.
  Freese: When you explained the beat on the record and you're like, "I think I played it with one hand," and I'm kinda doing the same thing. It feels good and sounds cool, you know?
  Grohl: It was unintentional; I did it when I demoed it at my house, and I'd just woken up and I was tired. But on the shitty drum set at my house, it just kinda sounded better. You're not hitting the hi-hat and the snare at the same time, so it sort of has more space.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • IS SOMEONE GETTING THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST... ^note The most it is said in a row is four times, but for how it's played it's easy enough to think otherwise.
    • Also replacing it with something that sounds similar, like so:
      Person: Hey Dave, what's the best football team?
      Dave Grohl: DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS...
  • "What if I say I'm not like the otters?"
  • The Foo Fighters vs. the Foo^note February 2020 saw a rise in memes pitting the band against their supposed arch-nemesis, the Foo. Jokes range from the fighting of the Foo being the Foo Fighters' major contribution to society to the Foo Fighters having a Berserk Button that snaps at the very presence of the Foo. Coincidentally, on The Late Show with David Letterman, the band did a similar joke themselves before the meme gained popularity, albeit in a slightly different fashion, and before that, Robot Chicken did a skit of their own.
• Misattributed Song: The disco song "Kung Foo Fighting" is often credited to the Foo Fighters on file-sharing sites. The song was actually performed by Carl Douglas.
• Seasonal Rot: After Wasting Light was deemed their best album since the first three, the general consensus is that the follow-ups weren't as good, with Medicine at Midnight in particular being their lowest rated on RateYourMusic.
• Signature Song: "My Hero" (it's used in a hundred movies, TV shows and commercials), "Everlong" (their most streamed song), "Learn to Fly", "Best of You", "The Pretender", "All My Life", "Times Like These" and "The Sky is A Neighborhood".
• Song Association: Rock Band 2 may be sick of "Everlong" by now (although it was also on Guitar Hero World Tour, but its single-player experience didn't repeat songs).
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • "Walk" has been compared to the 1998 Tal Bachmann song "She's So High".
  • "Wheels" is frequently compared to Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly", not in part because Dave was briefly the drummer for Petty's band.
  • "The Colour And The Shape" sounds like a combination of "Scentless Apprentice" and "Tourette's" by Grohl's former group Nirvana, which is one reason why it did not end up on the album it gave its name to. In addition, the drum intro Grohl plays on "My Hero" is virtually the same as the one he plays on "Scentless Apprentice", although since the song is about Cobain, it is likely an intentional Shout-Out.
  • Recognise that guitar figure that plays throughout the verses and bridge of "The Pretender"? If you're a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, you definitely should, because it's the main riff of "His World".
    • The progression of "The Pretender" also sounds a bit like "I Write Sins Not Tragedies".
• Vindicated by History: One By One got poor reviews at the time though has since been regarded as better than it was at the time, partly due to the group's songwriting gradually getting less rock-oriented since.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Wasting Light finished the winning back that Echoes started after One by One and In Your Honor lost some fans.
  • But Here We Are became this for the Seasonal Rot mentioned above, deemed one of their most inspired and energized albums in years. In fact, unlike the predecessors, which as mentioned above are their lowest rated, it has the highest score in RateYourMusic, somehow surpassing their most popular albums.

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