One by One (Foo Fighters album)

Did You Know?

• The album debuted at third place on the Billboard 200, with 122,000 copies sold in its first week.
• BMG partnered with telecom firm O2 and music provider Musiwave to promote the album in Europe with a special campaign focused on cellphones.
• The lead single "All My Life" was released on September 7, 2002.

Production

Frontman Dave Grohl began developing material for the next album in 2000 during the tour for There Is Nothing Left to Lose. After the tour, the band started composing songs in early 2001. Following demo work at drummer Taylor Hawkins' home studio in Topanga, the band performed at European festivals in the second quarter of 2001. In August, after a performance at Chelmsford's V Festival, Hawkins suffered a heroin overdose that left him in a coma for two weeks. After his recovery, during which Grohl accepted an offer to play drums for Queens of the Stone Age on Songs for the Deaf, the band reconvened in October 2001 to continue composition. In November and December, they recorded at Grohl's Studio 606 in Alexandria, Virginia, with producer Adam Kasper and recording engineer Nick Raskulinecz, whom they met after he engineered "A320" for Godzilla: The Album. Raskulinecz had recently left Sound City Studios, and Grohl, having difficulty finding someone willing to commit to sitting in his basement for four months, chose him for his energetic nature. The Virginia sessions grew stale, so with six tracks finished, the band moved to Los Angeles' Conway Studios in January 2002 for a change of scenery. Twenty-nine songs were recorded, including "The One" from the film Orange County and ten finished tracks considered for the album. The sessions took four months and cost over US$1,000,000. It was the first Foo Fighters album produced with Pro Tools and the first where band members recorded separately. The sessions were considered unsatisfying; Hawkins said nobody had their studio chops together, and Grohl felt the band lacked enthusiasm and was too focused on production, adding that the rough mixes "sucked a lot of the life out of the songs" and sounded like another band playing their songs. Tensions escalated, with arguments breaking out, and Hawkins said he did not feel they were much of a band due to animosity. Bassist Nate Mendel said he had a bad attitude during the sessions due to disagreements with Grohl, and guitarist Chris Shiflett added that he sometimes spent whole days in the studio without playing anything.

Composition

When it came out, One by One was seen as the Foo Fighters' heaviest record yet. Dave Grohl described its sound as darker and more aggressive than their typical style, saying it captured the energy of their live shows. He credited this to the long stretch of touring before writing the songs and the quick pace of the re-recordings. Unlike earlier albums, where some tracks never made it into concerts, Grohl felt the track list for One by One worked like a set list he would play every night. Early on, manager John Silva praised songs that didn't sound like the band's past work and told Grohl to stop chasing hit singles and get weird again. That pushed the band to be more experimental while still writing music meant to fill huge arenas. The album's variety includes moody tracks like "Have It All" and "Tired of You," the seven-minute closer "Come Back," and "Halo," whose shifting dynamics took cues from Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, and Guided by Voices. Grohl said they aimed to blend dissonance and melody, trying to be mean and ugly, then adding four-part harmony to make it beautiful. Lyrically, Grohl had avoided being introspective on previous records, but for One by One he wrote words that matched the emotional weight of the music. "Come Back," for instance, revealed dark, ugly sides of himself. He usually finished the lyrics for a song only after completing the vocal track for another. Grohl called the album "11 tortured love songs," centered on surrendering to yourself, with a sequence that moves from the hard start of falling in love to the comfort of being secure in it. His new girlfriend Jordyn Blum was a major inspiration, along with the band's own struggles, as heard in "Times Like These," which mourns the Foo Fighters' absence and questions their future. He described the single "All My Life" as a perfect example of the album's sound: much more aggressive, a little darker, more romantic, and creepier than anything they had done before.

Packaging and formats

The artwork for One by One was created by Raymond Pettibon, an artist known for his work with 1980s punk acts like Black Flag and Minutemen. Dave Grohl met Pettibon through bassist Mike Watt, and after seeing his home, Grohl hired him as a tribute, saying Pettibon’s images had stuck with him his whole life. Grohl himself came up with the heart motif used in the album’s booklet and singles. The album had two different covers, one black and one white. The first 575,000 copies were a limited edition that came with a bonus DVD. A limited international version included seven extra tracks: the outtake “Walking a Line,” three live songs, and three covers—The Psychedelic Furs’ “Sister Europe,” the Ramones’ “Danny Says” (with Shiflett on vocals), and Joe Walsh’s “Life of Illusion” (sung by Hawkins). A Norwegian release added a second disc of tracks recorded at Oslo Spektrum on December 4, 2002. The album also came out as a double vinyl LP and a DVD-Audio with 5.1 surround sound mixes. An Enhanced CD edition offered weblinks to the band’s official site and a place to download free music.

Critical reception

One by One was met with mostly favorable reviews from critics. On Metacritic, it earned a 75 out of 100 based on 19 reviews. Rolling Stone's Jon Pareles highlighted the album's strong guitar work and its introspective lyrics, which he felt went beyond mere personal storytelling. April Long of NME said even the album's softer songs had a sharp energy, calling it proof of the band's strength. Billboard's Michael Paoletta ranked it among the band's best efforts, noting that its themes added an emotional closeness that made the record more rewarding. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave it an A−, praising its surprising energy and the way it examined different kinds of relationships. The Austin Chronicle liked the heavier sound, saying it moved away from the lighthearted feel of earlier songs like "Big Me" while keeping the band's melodic touch.

But not everyone was convinced. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine admitted the album was well-made and performed, but felt it was too slick to connect on a gut level, and that the songs weren't as catchy or lasting as earlier work. Margaret Schwartz of PopMatters called it well-written and produced, but ultimately unsatisfying because it didn't stray far from the band's usual approach. Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club described it as mostly average, sticking to a polished, loud-quiet formula that never went deeper than typical anger and brooding. BBC's Nick Reynolds found the record uneven, praising the first four tracks but saying the rest didn't keep up the quality. Eric Carr of Pitchfork was especially harsh, calling the album overproduced and its songs "weightless, antiseptic cuts" that, while skillfully composed, lacked real strength and personality.