I, I'm a one-way motorway

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

26/01/03 : One By One - Foo Fighters



Our sixth visit with them Foos and generally it's been a case of admiration rather than enjoyment, but I've no problems with checking another one to see if I actually like it.

You know what? In parts at least, we do make it as far as "like" - it certainly doesn't hurt that it's got "Times Like These" on it, which is probably my favourite Foos track and "All My Life" is also a very decent track. And the rest of it has a nice muddy, heavy yet still tuneful sound to it which plays nicely with the sunshine we've currently experiencing. I felt like it did tail off in quality towards the end (or maybe it was just all too similar) and i certainly didn't need the closing track "Come Back" to go on for 7:50. Overall, I didn't mind this at all and definitely liked it in places, but it still left me feeling that the Foos are really a "best-of" band for me.

We're at #10 in the charts this week on their fourteenth week of an impressive 50 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week - it also managed a further eleven week run in '05 for no obvious reason. The top five this week were Justin Timberlake, Avril Lavigne, Busted, P!nk and Daniel Bedingfield, with the highest new entry being, quite obviously, a Leonard Cohen best-of (#70). 

Wikipedia tells us this is their fourth album and its recording was somewhat interrupted by Taylor Hawkins overdosing on heroin and spending two weeks in a coma and then the sessions went badly so tensions rose between band members. So they all took a bit of time out, came back refreshed and things went much better. The critics were somewhat mixed with some declaring it their best work and others saying it wasn't as good as what had come before - I can go with the BBC who said the first four tracks were great but it tailed off after that. Commercially, it did well globally but, apart from here, only got to #1 in Ireland, Australia as well, getting to #3 in the US. I can also tell you it was #17 in the Canadian Metal Albums year-end list - which seems like a very niche chart.

"Customers also listened to" Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens Of The Stone Age, Incubus and The White Stripes - all of whom I like bits of but can't be bothered with a lot more of their stuff. But I liked a lot of this, even if a whole album of it was a bit too much.

19/01/03 - Not bad at all
02/02/03 - A decent album

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