2002: The year Dave Grohl uniquely dominated the charts
Sometimes it can feel like Dave Grohl is omnipotent, unavoidable and inevitable. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching an American late-night talk show, flicking through the pages of a music magazine or dancing in the crowd of your favourite rock band, Dave Grohl is liable to appear at any moment.
The former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighting front-man has appeared on stage with such musical luminaries in recent years as Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Tony Joe White; has spent plenty of time on the cover of major magazines, offered insights and opinions as a talking head in countless documentaries, spent more time than he’d have liked at the top of the trending sections of social media and of course, toured the world with his band. Foo Fighters are always on the radio, on the stage, and, it can feel like, in the press.
Thanks to the band’s enduring popularity, and Grohl’s tireless public appearance schedule, another place you can perennially find them is in and around the top of the rock charts. But then again, that isn’t really anything new. If it feels like Grohl is doing everything, everywhere, all at once now, it’s nothing on the total chart domination he exhibited in the early 2000s.
By the time that Grohl joined Nirvana in September of 1990, the group were already on the path to superstardom, and to revolutionising both the modern rock scene and sound. The proliferation of grunge bands in the early 1990s have probably all got Nirvana to thank for their popularity, but the Seattle shouters never made it to the top of the singles charts in Kurt Cobain’s lifetime.
The final song that the band recorded before Cobain’s death, ‘You Know You’re Right’, would eventually go on to top the rock charts, though. Proving the enduring power of the band, and the deep way their music affected its fans, the song built a cult following over the years thanks to bootlegged live recordings but had to wait until late 2002 for an official release. When it was the lead single from and first song on the greatest hits compilation Nirvana, the track went on to spend four weeks at the top of the rock charts.
‘You Know You’re Right’ wasn’t the only song with Dave Grohl on drums to spend four weeks at the top of one of America’s rock charts that year, though. He can be heard behind the kit on the Queens of the Stone Age track ‘No One Knows’, from their album Songs for the Deaf, which also spent a month atop the charts.
But even those two stints at the summit combined didn’t last as long as the amount of time that Grohl spent at the top of the pops as the singer, songwriter and guitarist of the Foo Fighters’ ‘All My Life’, which spent ten weeks at number 1 between September and November of 2002.
Grohl had the Midas touch at the turn of the century, so it’s no wonder that he was tapped by a huge range of musicians to contribute to their albums. As well as having worked with Reeves Gabrels and Tommy Iommi in 2000 and Tenacious D in 2001, he also contributed to albums by David Bowie in 2002, as well as Cat Power, Killing Joke and The Bangles in 2003.
So the next time you’re listening to your favourite song from the early 2000s and find yourself wondering, “Now just who is playing the drums on this track?”, the safe money is that it’s probably Dave Grohl.
