I'm Not Scared

Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape

(10th Anniversary Reissue)

RCA/Roswell/Legacy; 2007

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Despite their last three albums, the Foo Fighters are my favorite band. And even if they weren't, this album - The Colour and the Shape - would still be my favorite. Not only did it hit me at that tender early musical development phase, but it's just so damned good. At any moment, I can hum the first note of "Doll" with perfect pitch. I remember when I mistakenly bought it off a classmate for ten bucks, confusing it with a different album. I remember laying awake at night with this in my headphones. This is still the album to which I measure up everything else. It has wonderful melodies, interesting song structures and more interesting transitions from song to song (true album construction), perfect use of dynamics (huge dynamic variety while maintaining continuity and avoiding cliche loud/soft/loud), and just about perfect layering of controlled noises that build to waves of sound, then recede to sensitive soft bits.

After this album, I waited two years to be rewarded with disappointment. Then a couple more years, and even bigger disappointment. Repeat. Each following album they released seemed more lazy (yet somehow more pretentiously ambitious) than the last. I started acting on the belief that what made this album great, truly great, was not exclusively the Foo Fighter material, but also the hand of the producer. With each lazy, mostly self-produced album, I got more and more frustrated and wished that they would get back together with Gil Norton (who also did great stuff with the Pixies and Counting Crows).

It's worth mentioning that the one thing that has helped me maintain any shred of faith in this, my favorite band, has been seeing them live. In a live setting they always manage to take a limp studio recording and really make it into what it was meant to be, be it hard rocking or acoustically. Maybe they're still good musicians who just don't have the self-recording skills? I mean, that one Grohl-produced Verbena album wasn't all that great, either.

Then I heard two news bits simultaneously: 1) The Foo Fighters would be releasing a remastered TCATS including B-sides and the long-lost title track, and 2) they were back in the studio with TCATS producer GIL NORTON. I just about shit myself.

As for the new package: the digipack reissue is surprisingly modest, which is the only real reason I bring it up at all. Unlike other reissues in my collection (Hellbilly Deluxe, Blind Faith), this stays mostly true to the original design, including a slightly different set of band photos and an interesting and honest if not completely heartfelt note from none other than... Nate Mendel, the only remaining member of the group from the TCATS lineup who isn't Dave Grohl. In the note, Mendel notes that TCATS is pretty much the Foo Fighters measuring stick, and admits the necesity of a producer who will really push a band (Just about shitting myself again). Also, you know those square pieces of paper that advertise cell phone ring tones or other crap like that? The one that fell out of this particular digipack sleeve boldly announces, in all the same sized, classic TCATS font:

NEW STUDIO ALBUM
FALL 2007
PRODUCED BY GIL NORTON

I seem to be the exact audience they're shooting for.

As for the new remaster of the disc: it's pretty good. I didn't realize before that my original disc is actually sort of muddy. This new take is surprisingly clear without changing the weight or emphasis of the original production. I was afraid that cleaning up the old tapes might actually thin out the heavier guitar parts, but it's not much of a problem.

As for the "new" songs: all six were released in some form or another, mostly as B-sides on obscure foreign singles, including four decent covers and two Foo Fighter originals. I already had "Baker Street" and "Dear Lover" on the My Hero import single, as do most fans, I'd expect. The real gem is the title track "The Colour and the Shape," which was only released on one part of the very limited, two-part Monkeywrench single. I mistakenly paid way too much for the wrong one, and had been dying to hear this song (searching P2P software for an elusive title track is entirely fruitless). It's pretty good; it's quite loud, and was probably a first-take recording as it lacks the polish, restraint, and complexity that the rest of the album tracks have. While I'm glad to now have the track in my collection, I'm glad it was cut from the album proper. If nothing else, I'm glad to have these six extra songs collected in one place.

As for the upcoming album: as usual, I'm excited. That's par for the course on the release of a new Foo Fighter album. But after three lazy albums, I should be pretty burnt out. I suppose what I'm really excited about is the possibility of chemistry between a band that I love and the producer that gave them their golden moment. After all, like I pointed out above, I seem to be the exact audience they're shooting for.