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Foo Fighters: The Colour and the Shape

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Capitol Records
Released: 1997.05.20
Time:
 46:47
Category: Alternative Rock
Producer(s): Gil Norton
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.foofighters.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2016
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Doll (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 1:23
[2] Monkey Wrench (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 3:51
[3] Hey, Johnny Park! (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 4:08
[4] My Poor Brain (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 3:33
[5] Wind Up (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 2:32
[6] Up in Arms (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 2:15
[7] My Hero (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 4:20
[8] See You (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 2:26
[9] Enough Space (D.Grohl) - 2:37
[10] February Stars (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 4:49
[11] Everlong (D.Grohl) - 4:10
[12] Walking After You (D.Grohl) - 5:03
[13] New Way Home (D.Grohl/N.Mendel/P.Smear) - 5:40

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Dave Grohl - Vocals, Guitar, Drums, Art Direction
Pat Smear - Guitar, Art Direction
Nate Mendel - Bass, Art Direction
 
William Goldsmith - Drums on [1,4,6]
Lance Bangs - Handclaps on [8]
Chris Bilheimer - Handclaps on [8]
Ryan Boesch - Handclaps on [8]
 
Gil Norton - Producer
Bradley Cook - Engineer, Recording Technicians
Geoff Turner - Engineer, Recording Technicians
Ryan Boesch - Assistant Engineer
Todd Burke - Assistant Engineer
Don Farwell - Assistant Engineer
Ryan Hadlock - Assistant Engineer
Jason Mauza - Assistant Engineer
Chris Sheldon - Mixing
Bob Ludwig - Mastering
Tommy Steele - Art Direction
Jeffery Fey - Design, Art Direction
George Mimnaugh - Design
Andy Engel - Logo Design
Josh Kessler - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1997 CD Capitol - 8231272
1997 LP RCA/Capitol - 55832
1997 CD RCA/Capitol/Roswell Records - CDEST 2295
1997 MC Capitol - TCEST 2295
 
 
 
Foo Fighters' second album begins with a song about fear. "I've never been so scared," sings Dave Grohl on "Doll," a supershort ballad about a dare he shouldn't have taken. The dare is not identified. Could it have been starting Foo Fighters after a career as Nirvana's drummer? Or is it something a little more complicated?
 
When Foo Fighters' eponymous first album came out, following Kurt Cobain's suicide, it was hungrily received by a nation of Nirvana fans looking for a substitute and maybe wanting to comfort Grohl in his grief. The best songs on Foo Fighters' debut sounded much like Nirvana (the quiet mumbles followed by loud screams; the melody under the noise). Grohl seemed to be emulating — and maybe speaking for — Kurt Cobain when Grohl yelled, "I don't owe you anything," on "I'll Stick Around." On The Colour and the Shape, Foo Fighters' second album, there are certainly moments that bring to mind Grohl's ex-band. You can't listen to "My Hero," a song about the disillusioning experience of finding out that your idol is merely human, without wondering if it's about Cobain. Grohl's repeated chorus on "Enough Space" recalls Cobain's keenings on Nevermind's "Stay Away" so much that you wonder if the song is an hommage.
 
At the same time, The Colour and the Shape is the first proper Foo Fighters album. The debut record was more of a Grohl solo project, co-produced by Grohl and Barrett Jones; The Colour and the Shape was produced by Gil Norton (who has worked with the Pixies, among others) and was cowritten with the rest of the band (although drummer William Goldsmith left the group after the album was finished and has since been replaced by Taylor Hawkins). But don't expect anything like the abrasive, recorded-in-a-garbage-can punk that guitarist Pat Smear made with his former band, the Germs - Colour has a big, radio-ready, modern-rock sound. Some might even call the album overproduced: On the ballads, the vocals are overprocessed and fake sounding. Screaming can get boring, but it's what Grohl does best.
 
The lyrics on Foo Fighters seemed random; here, they are inward looking. There might be a concrete reason for that: Grohl recently split up with his wife (he is reportedly now dating Louise Post of Veruca Salt). The Colour and the Shape gives the impression that Grohl is working out some romantic issues — there are lots of relationship tunes both about breaking up and about a new love, such as the lovesick-soft, then bracingly loud "Up in Arms" and the truly mushy "Everlong," in which Grohl chronicles being smitten with a singer. On the single "Monkey Wrench," one of the harderedged songs on Colour, he sings: "I was always caged, but now I'm free."
 
On "New Way Home," the last song on The Colour and the Shape, Grohl has an epiphany. He is driving to an unnamed location in Seattle, passing "boats and the Kingdome," when he realizes that he "felt like this on my way home." More important, Dave Grohl proclaims, "I'm not scared." Whatever his fear was — starting the band, breaking up with his wife, making a highly autobiographical second record, or something totally different — it has been worked through. At least for now.
 
Christina Kelly - May 29, 1997
© Rolling Stone 2016
 
 
 
Taking a cue from the old Blondie marketing slogan, the sophomore effort from Dave Grohl’s post-Nirvana band was their “The Foo Fighters is a band” project - well, at least it was intended that way, but Grohl pushed aside drummer William Goldsmith during the recording and played on the entire record. And who could blame him? When you’re the greatest drummer in rock, it’s hard to sit aside for someone else, no matter how good your intentions, and Grohl’s drumming does give the Foos muscle underneath their glossy exterior. That slickness arrives via producer Gil Norton, hired based on his work with the Pixies, but he manages to give The Colour and the Shape almost too sleek a sheen, something that comes as a shock after the raggedness of the group’s debut. Even the glossy final mix of Nevermind has nothing on the unapologetic arena rock of The Colour and the Shape - it’s all polished thunder, rock & roll that’s about precision not abandon. Some may miss that raw aggression of Grohl’s earlier work, but he’s such a strong craftsman and musician that such exactness also suits him, highlighting his sense of melody and melodrama, elements abundantly in display on the album’s two biggest hits, the brooding midtempo rockers “My Hero” and “Everlong.” Elsewhere, the Foos grind out three-chord rockers with an aplomb that almost disguises just how slick Norton’s production is, but everything here, from the powerful rush of the band to the big hooks and sleek surface, wound up defining the sound of post-grunge modern rock, and it remains as perhaps the best example of its kind.
 
Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide
 
 
 
 
Nirvana survivor Dave Grohl made people nearly forget his not unimpressive past with Foo Fighters' 1995 debut, virtually a Grohl solo album that demonstrated a knack for crushing but catchy tunes and surprisingly authoritative vocals. "The Colour and the Shape" is more of the same, only this time it's a full band effort with more comprehensible (mostly anguished) lyrics and plush, radio-ready production by Gil Norton. Grohl has an undeniable knack for the slow-fast, quiet-loud dynamics that Husker Du, the Pixies perfected before him. But whereas those bands exploded the formula with soulful surprises and twisted genius, Grohl hews to it like a journeyman. Not bad, just not great.
 
Greg Kot - May 23, 1997
www.chicagotribune.com
 
 
 
Many were surprised when Nirvana's closed-mouthed drummer, Dave Grohl, stepped out from that band's dark shadows as a singer and guitarist with a youthfully effervescent album under the banner Foo Fighters. Listening to his songs "This Is a Call" and "I'll Stick Around," you had to wonder where the issues were. What about the fear, guilt, regret and sense of loss?
 
Here they are.
 
"The Colour and the Shape" begins with "Doll," a frayed folk-rock tune that quakes under the words "I've never been so scared ... I wish I never had taken this dare / Doll me up in my bad luck / I'll meet you there." The song is one of the best on this big-sound powerhouse, which brims over with bombast a la Queen and scrappy, ornery guitar back talk punched up by producer Gil Norton.
 
Hard and soft, erratic and edgy, packed with anger, fear and foreboding, "The Colour and the Shape" slips fresh air into its sound as guitarists Grohl and Pat Smear duel with kidlike flair. What the album lacks in soul-digging lyrics that resonate - "Doll," "Monkey Wrench" and "Hey, Johnny Park!" are the big exceptions - it makes up for with perfectly good guitar.
 
Sara Scribner - May 18, 1997
Copyright 2016 Los Angeles Times
 
 
 
    “The band is in the studio now as this reissue is being put together, making what will surely be our finest record, and when we go out to share the great news with the press this time, I’m sure that some journalist will have the temerity to call the band on its serial self-regard, and there’s a good chance that journalist will add that, in their opinion, The Colour and the Shape is the band’s best, the bastard.”
   
Nate Mendel, from the liner notes to the new, expanded edition of The Colour and the Shape
 
What Mendel neglects to mention in his appropriately cheeky lament regarding the constant fawning over The Colour and the Shape is that for every hundred words that same journalist eventually writes about his band, there will still be a reference to Nirvana. That was my first. Count along!
 
In all seriousness, for anyone who experienced the heyday of that seminal band, it’s still surreal that the lanky, string-haired drummer is the guy who’d be on magazine covers and writing #1 rock radio hits 15 years later. And yet, here we are, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the album that made that particular alternate universe a reality. The Colour and the Shape may never be considered any sort of artistic achievement—the critical respect afforded to OK Computer, Urban Hymns, or Either/Or (all also from ‘97) seems out of reach—but there’s no denying that it’s a damn good rock album.
 
The greatness of The Colour and the Shape starts, as it should, with the singles. Despite the big chorus of “I’ll Stick Around”, people weren’t exactly sure whether the post-Nirvana Grohl knew how to rock out; one of the trademarks of the eponymous debut was Grohl’s strikingly non-aggressive (read: bland) vocal style. It was as if he eased into the songs, letting them take his voice where they may. His voice never dictated the action, it was there to be a voice. That all changed with “Monkey Wrench”, whose guitar licks, beats, and melodies are just fine, but whose bridge opened up the world of possibilities that the Foos would soon explore. Sixty-five syllables, almost all of them on the same note but each one a little bit more intense than the last, culminating with a piercing, screamed “I’M FREEEEEE!!!!!”... it was enough to shock nearly everyone who saw Grohl’s Fighters as an inconsequential little one-off into paying attention again. And pay attention we did. “My Hero” was tremendous at modern rock radio (not to mention an essential piece of Grohl’s coming to terms with his past), and the X-Files remake of Colour‘s “Walking After You” had a moment or two to shine as well.
 
Still, it is “Everlong” that the Foo faithful remember and continue to love these ten years later. It’s one of those entities that’s hard to quantify—I don’t think it’s the whimsical video, or Grohl’s take on hi-hat-happy drumming (impressive as both are), or even the guitar lines that make “Everlong” such a timeless classic, as much as it’s the emotion. “And I wonder / When I sing along with you / If everything could ever feel this real forever / If anything could ever be this good again,” Grohl sings, invoking the sort of high that comes from perfect, uninterrupted bliss. In a live setting, they’re the sort of lyrics that speak toward those nigh-religious experiences that cement bands in their audience’s mind. On CD, it speaks to an intimate sort of happiness that everyone can relate to, each in a completely personal, unique way. That those words are set to a killer hook doesn’t exactly hurt.
 
Even beyond “Everlong”, it is this same sort of universality that makes the rest of The Colour and the Shape such a repeat-listenable sort of album. It’s a relationship album—Grohl was going through a painful divorce as the band was making the album—and yet it doesn’t come off as lovey, or hokey, or bitter. Each song simply grabs an emotion and holds on for dear life. “My Poor Brain” goes from poppy to screamy in ten seconds flat, perfectly outlining the constant pressure of imminent failure. “Wind Up” and “Enough Space” are tantrums of the highest order, and the utterly gorgeous and patient “February Stars” is simultaneously wistful, sorrowful, and powerful. “Doll” opens the album tentatively, while “New Way Home” is triumphant and upbeat as a closer, the pair of which willfully defy the conventions of “start with a bang, end with a whimper” that defined so many albums of the era.
 
There was even an air of experimentation in the form of “See You”, an upbeat little showtuney thing that Cobain would never have let fly.
 
So it goes, that even as it’s impossible to write about The Colour and the Shape without seeing it through the rose-tinted glasses built by the formidable combination of chart success and fan esteem, it’s still surprising just how well the album holds up. The remastering work done for this reissue simply pops without redefining the songs it’s been applied to; it’s always been an easy album to bounce around to, and that holds true even more now. And there are bonus tracks!  As bonus tracks, they’re pretty fantastic (even if the collectors will cringe at their precious import singles being rendered useless), even if they don’t add much to the album. It may be a bit difficult to resolve the mellow vocal take on Killing Joke’s “Requiem” that Grohl provides, but the version of Prince’s “Drive Me Wild” that shows up here is an energetic trip, mitigating that other misstep. And really, it’s fun to hear the thrashy little ditty that gave “The Colour and the Shape” its name, even as it was left on the cutting room floor.
 
There is a perfect little treasure to be found amongst the extras: “Dear Lover”, once a B-side of “My Hero” and soundtrack reject, turns out to be a perfectly poignant little thing that never gets as melodramatic as, say, “Walking After You”. Really, it’s the quiet, reflective side of “Everlong” and the aftermath of the events that inspired the album; “Now I know the way true love should be,” Grohl sings with a sort of contented sorrow, as the rest of his life opens up and the painful memories start to fade. Granted, the fake ending is probably unnecessary, but it is a B-side after all.
 
Yet, while those extra tracks might inspire a purchase or three, hearing The Colour and the Shape again isn’t about hearing what’s different or new, it’s about hearing an album that brings the memories rushing back, it’s about hearing the true beginning of an artist’s self-realization and development. Where once he was defined by his past, The Colour and the Shape ensured that he would, from this point on, be defined by his present. This is where Dave Grohl made himself known to a generation that couldn’t have given two flips about Nirvana; this is where Grohl re-endeared himself to a generation that had shut itself off to his musings as they declared them predeterminedly inferior to what had come before. They say everything happens for a reason. Well, I would never wish the pain of divorce on anyone, but it’s that very pain (along with all of the other emotions involved in such a tumultuous time) that may well have turned The Colour and the Shape into what it is.
 
It really is a great album, one that the Foo Fighters continue to wear as a badge and a curse, knowing that in our hearts, they may never live up to it. And that’s okay.
 
Rating: 9 out of 10
 
Mike Schiller - 22 August 2007
© 1999-2016 Popmatters.com
 
 
 
 
The Colour and the Shape is the second studio album by the American rock band Foo Fighters. Produced by Gil Norton, it was released through Capitol Records and the group's own Roswell Records on May 20, 1997. The record is the debut of the Foo Fighters as a group, as the band's previous record, Foo Fighters (1995), was primarily recorded by frontman Dave Grohl and friend Barrett Jones as a demo. After the project ballooned and became an international success, the group convened for pre-production in the fall of 1996 and brought in producer Norton to establish a pop sensibility for the tracks. The band strived to create a full-fledged rock record, although the music press predicted another grunge offshoot.
 
Primarily inspired by Grohl's divorce from photographer Jennifer Youngblood in 1996, the lyricism on the record is substantially more introspective and the music more developed. The album's track listing was designed to resemble a therapy session, splitting the album between up-tempo tracks and ballads, reflecting conflicting emotions. Early sessions at Washington farm studio Bear Creek were poor and led the band to discard most of the recordings. The band regrouped without drummer William Goldsmith in early 1997 to record a second time at Hollywood's Grandmaster Recordings, with Grohl sitting in on drums instead. Goldsmith was offended and disgruntled that most of his material was re-recorded and left the band shortly thereafter.
 
Main singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong" and "My Hero" peaked within the top ten on United States rock radio, and the album charted at number three in the United Kingdom. Critics found the album a significant American rock release of the era, and it is now viewed as a seminal modern rock album. It was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1998 for Best Rock Album. The Colour and the Shape is the Foo Fighters' biggest U.S. seller, having sold over two million copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album was remastered and reissued in 2007 with several bonus tracks, celebrating its tenth anniversary.
 
The album was the debut of Foo Fighters as a band, as frontman Dave Grohl had recorded all of the first album by himself with the exception of one guitar part by Greg Dulli. The band's original lineup was assembled for their exhaustive touring schedule throughout 1995 and 1996, during which the band became an international sensation on the strength of singles "This Is a Call", "I'll Stick Around" and "Big Me". Although the music press generally speculated the band's sophomore record would showcase grunge-inspired garage rock, the band's intention was to make a proper rock record. The deal the band struck with Capitol Records allowed a large degree of creative control regarding the band's true "debut." The songs on the record were composed during soundchecks during the extensive touring that the band went through for the previous eighteen months. Mendel stated "the germ of every song is Dave's," with the frontman providing a riff and the basic structure, and afterwards the band would jam and each member would contribute to a part of the song.
 
For the band's second album, Grohl recruited producer Gil Norton to provide additional pop polish to the material, demanding to hear guitar overdubs and harmonies with significant clarity. Grohl admired Norton from his work with the Pixies and how he was able to "distil a coherent pop song out of all their multi-layered weirdness." Norton was very demanding of the band's performance, eventually leading bassist Nate Mendel to enhance his musical formation. Grohl also stated that "it was frustrating and it was hard and it was long, but at the end of the day you listened back to what you'd done and you understood why you had to do it one million times."
 
The Colour and the Shape was recorded over the period of two months, primarily at Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood from January to February 1997. The band spent two weeks in pre-production the previous autumn, rehearsing the tracks and changing arrangements. Norton had his greatest impact during pre-production, during which he spent days with Grohl in his hotel room "stripping the songs back to their absolute basics." His role in production taught the band the importance of self-editing and gave them confidence to see "the larger picture in a song." Afterwards, the band set off for Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington, where the first recording sessions for The Colour and the Shape began on November 18, 1996. Bear Creek, described by Mendel as "a converted barn with a salmon stream running through it," was located on a farm and the band lived in a cabin-like home adjacent to the studio. Grohl described the sessions as a "bad experience," deciding to scrap nearly all of the recorded tracks. Over the holiday break, Grohl returned to Virginia and wrote several new songs, recording two of them, "Walking After You" and an acoustic version of "Everlong", by himself at WGNS Studios in Washington, DC.
 
The band (minus drummer William Goldsmith) relocated to Hollywood's Grandmaster Recorders in February 1997, described by Mendel as "a small studio that sometimes moonlighted as a porn set, and looked the part." For a period of four weeks, the band re-recorded most of the album with Grohl performing the drum tracks. It started with only "Monkey Wrench" as Grohl and Norton felt the drums needed more work, but eventually Goldsmith's drums remained on only two tracks, "Doll" and "Up in Arms". According to Grohl, Goldsmith's drumming had good moments, but his performances mostly did not fit what Grohl had conceived for the drum track, so the frontman decided to redo them himself. Goldsmith even asked if he should go to Los Angeles, but Grohl dismissed this by saying he was only performing overdubs. Once Mendel told Goldsmith the situation, Grohl said that despite replacing Goldsmith's tracks, he still wanted him as a bandmember, but the disgruntled drummer decided to leave the Foo Fighters instead. Speaking about the tension surrounding the departure of Goldsmith, Grohl in 2011 said, "There were a lot of reasons it didn't work out... but there was also a part of me that was like, you know, I don't know if I'm finished playing the drums yet." He would also state, "I wish that I would have handled things differently..."
 
After the move to Los Angeles, the album's budget ballooned and deadlines became even more of an issue. Studio time was expensive and the group was pressured by Capitol to deliver the record in a timely fashion. The pressure never materialized for the band, and the band's main priority was to make "music for its own sake […] and let the commercial concerns take care of themselves." The album's title comes from the band's tour manager of the time, who would often spend afternoons rummaging thrift stores and purchasing strange memorabilia. On one occasion, he purchased a bowling pin with red and white stripes, remarking to the band he rather liked the "colour and the shape" of the object. The group found it arbitrary and hilarious and decided on that title, rather than base the title off the theme or mood of the music. The band considered placing a therapist's couch on the album cover, as a reflection of the record's track sequence (see Composition).
 
The Colour and the Shape has been characterized as alternative rock, post-grunge, hard rock, and grunge by professional reviewers. Much of the lyricism found on the album revolves around battered romanticism, more specifically the dissolution of Grohl and Jennifer Youngblood's marriage during the winter of 1996, which Grohl described as "the winter of my discontent." The album's track sequence reflects this sentiment, chronicling his change from chaos to newfound happiness. Although Grohl self-admitted the lyricism found on Foo Fighters was obscure and "nonsense," Norton pushed Grohl to write lyrics that had meaning. Grohl also found new strength in his singing compared to the insecurities on his voice for the debut, and delved deeper into his feelings with the lyrics, with him stating that "there was a new freedom: 'Wow, I can actually write about things I feel strongly about and things that mean something to me and things I wouldn't normally say in everyday conversation.'" The frontman stated that the experience was "kind of liberating," comparing the album to going to a weekly visit to the therapist "and then the rest of the week feel pretty good about everything."
 
The album's opener, "Doll", involves the fear of entering into situations unprepared. "Wind Up" was written about the relationship between musicians and journalists, wherein the latter tend to paint the former as convicted and reluctant. "My Hero" criticizes idolatry and instead extolls friends who are ordinary heroes, which has been considered a statement on fame and partially inspired by former bandmate Kurt Cobain. On the record's closing track, "New Way Home," Grohl longs for his hometown and recalls the drive there on Highway 99. Through this journey, "I realise that it’s OK, I can make my way through all of this, and I’m not that freaked out at the end." Three types of songs permeate the record: ballads, up-tempo tracks and combinations of the two. Grohl felt they were representative of the specific emotions he would feel after the divorce.
 
The Colour and the Shape was released on May 20, 1997, being preceded the month before by lead single "Monkey Wrench". The promotional campaign tried to emphasize the group identity and each of the bandmembers' personality. For instance, each member gave interviews with press of their interests, with guitarist Pat Smear talking to guitar and fashion magazines. Just as the album was finished and Taylor Hawkins was hired as the new drummer (he was the former touring drummer for Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill in 1995), Smear expressed he would also leave the band, claiming he was exhausted and not motivated to go into another extended tour. The promotional tour started in May 1997, with Smear remaining until a replacement was found, which turned out to be Franz Stahl, Grohl's former bandmate in Scream. Smear announced his departure and handed the guitar over to Stahl during a performance at the Radio City Music Hall in September, just before the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.
 
Critical response to the record was generally positive. UK-based Melody Maker viewed The Colour and the Shape to be a significant American rock release, writing, "The Colour and the Shape is a great rock album at a time when great rock albums are viewed with increasing suspicion." The publication saw the album as leagues ahead of other post-grunge acts: "The first album might have been a collection of loveable songs, but lacked the sheer visceral attack that thrills this time round," wrote Victoria Segal. "An attack that would have […] almost any other US rock band biting their nails in anguish and embarrassment." Christina Kelly of Rolling Stone was largely positive, although she singled out Norton's production as distracting: "Colour has a big, radio-ready, modern-rock sound. Some might even call the album overproduced: On the ballads, the vocals are overprocessed and fake sounding." Entertainment Weekly praised the band's growth, but criticized the sound journalist David Browne described as "like much current alt-rock: been there, grunged that." In contrast, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described that production as revolutionary: "everything here wound up defining the sound of post-grunge modern rock, and it remains as perhaps the best example of its kind." In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said the music is routine but elevated by Grohl's "marital breakup content/concept," allowing him to "fully inhabit the music that meant so much to him and millions of other Kurt Cobain fans."
 
To commemorate The Colour and the Shape's tenth anniversary, the album was re-released on July 10, 2007, and included six previously released B-sides, consisting of "Dear Lover", "The Colour and the Shape", and four covers, including "Baker Street".
 
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