Which pop star sang backing vocals on the Foo Fighters song ‘Make it Right’?
The spirit of being cynical can result in some really bitter things. No one wants to be negative all the time. But when it comes to the Foo Fighters, that task is getting harder and harder.
What began in the mid-1990s as a post-Nirvana passion project for Dave Grohl genuinely created a rock and roll behemoth in its time that would be impossible to ignore. The band was a reflection of grief, new directions, and unexpected paths that no one could have predicted when the original grunge trio were at their heights.
Everything that’s left now is, unfortunately for lack of a better term, tumbleweed. The Foo Fighters of old, who were truly riotous, exciting, and sometimes dangerous, have aged in favour of dated and washed-out songs that mean very little in this current day and age. If you need any more proof of that, you only have to look at their track ‘Make It Right’.
Taken from their 2017 album Concrete and Gold, it was a departure into confused territory for the band as their out-and-out rock and roll origins became increasingly diluted amid a landscape getting more and more concerned by the influential wrath of social media and the mainstream. What other possible justification could they have for working with Justin Timberlake?
As much as the former NSYNC member rose to fame at a similar time to the Foos, the similarities should have well and truly stopped there for the pair. However, in a move that would likely have Kurt Cobain rolling in his grave, Timberlake wormed his way into the recording sessions for Concrete and Gold and ended up singing backing vocals on ‘Make It Right’.
How did Justin Timberlake end up backing the Foo Fighters?
Timberlake, king of terrible tunes, even worse movies, and saying, “This is going to ruin the tour” when he gets arrested, had no connections to the band prior to appearing on their song. But he just so happened to be recording in the same studio at the same time as the Foo Fighters were making Concrete and Gold, so he asked to join in, clearly having nothing better to do.
“We’d drink whiskey in the parking lot,” Grohl later told Rolling Stone. “Then the night before his last day, he [said], ‘Can I sing on your record? I don’t want to push it, but – I just want to be able to tell my friends.’” Essentially, he was looking to claw back some street cred and saw a rock band as his best bet.
Despite the slightly cringe-worthy story behind it, Grohl insisted that Timberlake was “really, really cool” and “such a pro”, which is probably the first time the boyband member had heard those words said about him since the ‘90s. But above all else, if you needed a symbol of how the Foo Fighters were on the decline, that would be it.
Listen, we’ve all made bad decisions in life: times we really should have said no, or been forced to be grateful to someone when you’d truly rather throttle them. Grohl’s praise of Timberlake could be just that. But the sobering reality is that you get the impression he’s really not putting up a front.
