Foo Fighters

From: Seattle, Washington

Active: 1995-present

I first heard them: when "This Is a Call" hit the radio immediately prior to the release of their first album, which I had already been planning to buy sound unheard

Sound: When Nirvana's drummer started his own band after Kurt Cobain's suicide, obviously I was going to check out the results. The Cobain influence is all over the first record, but with each one after that the Foo Fighters' sound seemed to get blander and blander. I've heard them compared to Tom Petty and that seems pretty accurate. I stopped following them in the early '00s.

Listening station: That said, there are plenty of Foo Fighters songs I like! Here are a couple. The first is fairly representative of the best regular Foo material; the second is my favorite Foo song, but pretty atypical.

"Stacked Actors" (1999)
"Exhausted" (1995)