‘One By One’: The black sheep of Foo Fighters’ catalogue
It would be stretching to call anything that Foo Fighters released underrated. Even when Dave Grohl first started the group from a cassette tape he made in Seattle, everyone was already interested in seeing what the former Nirvana drummer had in store for the rest of his career. That kind of pressure usually means working out the bugs in the public eye, and nowhere did it get more nasty than on One by One.
Before even getting to their fourth outing, it’s important to remember that Grohl wasn’t really intending for the band to be a full-on project. These were songs that he recorded for himself to get over Nirvana, but once people started buying it in droves, he needed a band to help fill everything out. But when The Colour and the Shape cost him both a guitarist and a drummer, There is Nothing Left to Lose felt like a recovery record as they fell back down to Earth.
So, in theory, One by One should have been the kind of album that the band was always destined to make, but Grohl has never felt the need to revisit it ever again. Since the band was going through a bunch of infighting during the record, Grohl was seriously considering folding the band altogether and moving on to something different.
After spending over a million dollars on a record that none of them liked, they figured they would re-record everything once the dust had settled. While the record did end up boasting some knockout singles like ‘All My Life’ and ‘Times Like These’, hearing Grohl talk about it now still feels like a raw wound, saying that he only played a handful of songs live and never bothered with the rest of the album ever again.
For anyone willing to go a little bit deeper, though, the deeper cuts are a lot more fascinating. Look no further than the second song, ‘Low’. Even though it never really worked as a single, hearing Grohl embrace his inner metal god feels like the remnants of the Probot project he was working on, only this time it’s a lot more fleshed out.
And for something that Grohl doesn’t hold that close to the chest, some moments should stand beside the greatest tunes in their catalogue. ‘Halo’ has one of the highest vocals that he has ever laid down, and while ‘Tired of You’ comes dangerously close to falling into dirge territory, hearing Brian May come in with his symphony of guitars makes the tune sound a whole lot moodier than Grohl could have done on his own.
Out of all the tracks, though, none of them seem as forward-thinking as ‘Come Back’. While there had been stretched-out Foo Fighters songs before, hearing the entire band break down to an acoustic section midway through the song before coming back to stomping power chords was practically a preview of things to come.
After the band took to the road, Grohl already had the makings of a mellower record ready to go with the back half of In Your Honour. Even though the band’s double record is still among the greatest things they have ever done, ‘Come Back’ is as if all the drama of that record was paired down to eight minutes.
Grohl might not care for the record that much these days, but in the grand scheme of things, One By One is a transitionary record that got Foo Fighters to where they are today. Even if it was far from their best record and is incredibly spotty in places, the ambition behind it helped Grohl go from alternative rock legend to arena-rock superstar.
