“Get off my lawn!”
Throughout his nearly 30-year career, Dave Grohl has evolved from teenage DC punk opting out of mainstream culture to Gen X hero to Baby Boomer rock’s most outspoken son. Somewhere along the way — particularly in the last few years as he’s worked with Paul McCartney and filmed his ’70s rock-centric doc Sound City — the things that 45-year-old Grohl says have started to sound an awful lot like your rockist dad’s offhanded comments during music awards shows. Grohl’s dissed reality singing competitions and pop radio as many times as he’s breathlessly saluted The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the spirit of that old time rock and roll. He’s slighted EDM at the Grammys, only to place a small Band-Aid over the whole thing after the fact (peak dad). He’s remained skeptical of technology. My own father thinks he makes some salient points about modern music.
As Grohl’s Foo Fighters release their eighth album, Sonic Highways, this week, we at Flavorwire wanted to highlight Grohl’s attitude shift in a playful way. So I asked Flavorpill staffers to send me the most dad-rock dispatches from their Baby Boomer fathers. What follows are 17 actual quotes from Grohl and our staff’s dads, mixed together in an effort to stump you. The answers are on the next page.
- “Because you have things like American Idol and you’ve got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it’s easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.”
- “Heavy metal would not exist without Led Zeppelin, and if it did, it would suck.”
- On Taylor Swift: “The last time music was this soulless, punk came along.”
- “People don’t realize how smart Pink Floyd actually were. I learned science from those guys!”
- “Barry Manilow is the coolest motherfucker in the world.”
- “Drum machines do not belong in rock and roll. Can you believe Phil Collins from Genesis actually used ’em on his huge solo hits — and he’s a drummer!”
- “From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.”
- “Chicks ruined Fleetwood Mac. The Eagles simply ruined themselves.”
- “When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.”
- “Foo Fighters is the stupidest fucking name.”
- “TV talent shows make everyone sound like fucking Christina Aguilera.”
- “Dude, maybe not everyone loves Glee. Me included. I watched 10 minutes and it wasn’t my thing.”
- “Now Bread knew how to write a love song.”
- “In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.”
- [Quoting Bob Seger]: “Today’s music ain’t got the same soul.”
- “Wait, American Idol’s still a thing?”
- “The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‘Let It Be’ or ‘Long and Winding Road’ or a song like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Roxanne,’ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.”
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