EACH BAND'S TOP 10 SONGS ― FOO FIGHTERS

10. THE PRETENDER (2007)

The first (and best) track off Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, “The Pretender” carries over both the aggression and violins from the Foo’s previous effort, merging what was separated on In Your Honor into one bracing single. Grohl’s rage-filled vocals question authority, bite back against conformity, and yet he never distances himself from the listener. Does the message end up an afterthought to said listeners? Absolutely, but that’s only because Grohl writes better hooks than most other “rock” stars of our era. He’s too busy engaging his audience both on record and on the road to be concerned about boring ol’ messages, anyway. – Justin Gerber

9. MONKEY WRENCH (1997)

Oh, to go back to the spring of 1997. There was a time when I could scream out the nervous breakdown of “Monkey Wrench” without taking a single breath and belt out the word “fast” as if the lives of me and my friends depended on it. I’m obsessed with nostalgia and worrying that looking back can be dangerous, but how can you not love this song? As the first single to The Colour and the Shape, it proved Grohl’s project had become a proper band and one with enough passion and energy to still be blowing the roofs off arenas two decades later. – Justin Gerber

8. I’LL STICK AROUND (1995)

“It’s just a very negative song about feeling you were violated or deprived,” Grohl explained of “I’ll Stick Around” to Rolling Stone long ago. He’s not wrong; this sucker’s nuclear, raging with all sorts of grunge-tinged ions that eat and devour each other without a fork and a knife. The beauty of the song, though, is in its simplicity and how it sounds like Grohl essentially hit the distortion pedal on a track from A Hard Day’s Night. It’s no coincidence, then, that it’s sandwiched right between the very Fab Four-esque “This Is a Call” and “Big Me”, making “I’ll Stick Around” a brilliant display of the soft-loud tendencies the band continues to mine today. Let’s also not forget this was one of the earliest singles for the Foo Fighters, and Grohl did his damnedest to prove his singing could match his drumming. Scan to 2:57 for some Peak Grohl. – Michael Roffman

7. ROPE (2011)

The “CHAAAOKE!” yowled by Grohl isn’t the chorus of “Rope”, but it may as well be. Every time it surges from the speakers, it revitalizes a song that needs no revitalization whatsoever, taking it to a higher plane several times over. But like many of the songs on Wasting Light, “Rope” has layers that go beyond loudness. In the verses, Grohl turns to his more soothing lower register. The dichotomy turns the term “stadium rock” (two words I’ve probably used several times already) into somewhat of an insult. Even in a cranked-up song like “Rope”, Foo Fighters manage to find more nuance than the typical radio giant. And hey, if loudness is your thing, just play (and scream along to) “CHAAAOOOKE!” again and again and again. – Dan Caffrey

6. MY HERO (1997)

Now that we’re more than 20 years into Foo Fighters’ career, it’s hard to remember the early days when Grohl’s melodies, arrangements, and, most of all, lyrics were frequently combed over for comparisons and references to Nirvana. The band formed so quickly after Kurt Cobain’s death that fans were sure that Grohl must have been as preoccupied with his former bandmate as the general public was. That idea gave way to a song like “My Hero” often being incorrectly interpreted as a song about Cobain, but the song is much more universal than that. It’s a song about less traditional icons, folks that walk among us and perform small, necessary acts that lift up others. As Grohl repeats throughout the songs, they’re “ordinary.” What’s not ordinary in the song is the Grohl’s performance on drums, recorded as one of the most urgent percussion elements of the Foos’ career. They move the song forward in a way that almost takes over the track, speaking to the strength of the other components when they don’t. – Philip Cosores

5. GOOD GRIEF (1995)

Maybe a couple times a year a song hits the alt rock airwaves that makes listeners do a double take because it’s something they haven’t quite heard before. If any song fits that bill for the Foos, it’s “Everlong”, and “Good Grief” always struck me as the stepping stone to that classic. The fifth cut off the Foo Fighters’ self-titled debut has an eclecticism and patience that belied Grohl’s relatively short experience as a songwriter. It’s a song that erupts, barks, and thrashes melodically but remains perfectly paced throughout, like a roller coaster car that knows hills and turns and drops await but that they’ll be all the more dynamic and thrilling thanks to the stretches of straight track between. Remember when your grandparents would marvel at some example of craftsmanship and sigh, “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore?” Well, this song is what I’ll be blasting when I say those words to my grandkids. – Matt Melis

4. BEST OF YOU (2005)

Foo Fighters will never go down as an overly-sentimental band, but it’s not a coincidence that many of their very best songs find an emotional urgency to match their unparalleled ability to rock. At that, “Best of You” is practically inspirational. Written following Grohl’s work on John Kerry’s campaign trail in 2004, it’s a song best described as therapeutic, an outreached hand of support for anyone fighting adversity. But while the takeaway is how Foo Fighters crafted an anthem that works as a sing-along for thousands or fits nicely within a Prince set at the Super Bowl, it’s also important to note the performance of the song. Grohl might never again sound as impassioned as he does in this recording, his throat rubbed raw by several minutes of fifth-gear scream-singing. For a message that sounds best bold and underscored, it’s exactly the delivery that the song needs. – Philip Cosores

3. TIMES LIKE THESE (2002)

Many folks dig on the acoustic version of “Times Like These”. Maybe it’s because the sonics more closely match Dave Grohl’s self-doubt at the time of writing One by One’s best song. But we’ll always go for the electric. It’s simply more uplifting, thanks in no small part to Grohl and Chris Shiflett’s dueling leads. Their guitar lines intertwine, then float away, as if the two musicians are having a conversation in the sky. Sure, the piano in the unplugged version is purdy, but when you’re feeling like shit — as the entire band was during the recording of One by One — what would you rather have? A ballad or an anthem? – Dan Caffrey

2. EXHAUSTED (1995)

Fun fact: “Exhausted” is technically the band’s first single. Issued as a rare promotional 12″, the sludgy, psychedelic ballad cracked open the Foo mythology on January 8, 1995, through a broadcast on Eddie Vedder’s Self-Pollution Radio. Imagine the context, though. Everyone knew it was Grohl’s official follow-up to Nirvana, specifically their third studio album, 1993’s In Utero, an aural wasteland of sticky hooks, sharp distortion, and macabre poetry. “Exhausted” stays true to that album’s spirit; it’s lonely, it’s loud, it’s unpredictable, and it’s fucking depressing.

At 4:23, when Grohl barrels back into the main riff, it’s as if he’s purging everything he learned with the Seattle outfit, which may explain why it’s a) the first single for the Foo Fighters, b) the closing track on his self-titled debut, and c) a type of sound they never continued. Fans who like to talk about which Foo Fighters songs pay homage to the late Cobain should be pointing to this one. It’s the bridge between the two iconic bands, and like any great bridge in any iconic city, it’s always worth walking over again for a wider perspective. It also helps that the song flat-out rules. – Michael Roffman

1. EVERLONG (1997)

I could be wrong, but I swear I’ve heard David Letterman introduce several musical acts on his show as “my favorite band.” Regardless, he’s always seemed to mean it with the Foo Fighters. They were the first musicians he asked to be on the Late Show after his quintuple bypass surgery in 2000, brought in to play his favorite song. Of course, it was “Everlong”. What else would it have been? There will no doubt be a string of comments lamenting the deep cuts and B-sides that should have made it higher on this list, but I’ll be genuinely surprised if anyone disagrees with number one. And that’s because it has stakes. Remember, Dave Grohl wrote the song’s lyrics while his marriage crumbled around him and he fell in love with another woman. He had both nothing and everything to lose. His (and later Taylor Hawkins’) hissing ride on the hi-hit adds further urgency, and by the end, the risk could apply to anything: divorce, forming a band, heart surgery.

Like a lot of people, Letterman got helped through a difficult period by “Everlong”, something he elaborated on when he invited Foo Fighters back to play it again in 2011. The sound was bigger — Nate Mendel’s bass bubbled, the guitars had multiplied to three, and the audience furiously clapped along. And that’s to say nothing of its ultimate encore as the song that would bring down the curtain on Letterman’s Late Show tenure forever. This time, it even got its own fireworks display. Yet despite the expansion, the sentiment remained the same. “Everlong” will always be universal. It will always be about risk, about holding your breath and leaping into the unknown. Everyone loves it, and, for once, everyone is right. – Dan Caffrey

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