10 Biggest Album Flops In Rock History
5. Sonic Highways - Foo Fighters
The greatest records of all time often start out with a simple premise. Even if your fans only see your work as just another collection of songs, some of the most foundation rock music tends to have a concept tying everything together. Having a goal for a record certainly sets you up for success, but that's doesn't mean that everything will line up perfectly afterward.
On the surface, Foo Fighters' 8th record Sonic Highways sounded like a fantastic experiment, with the band going to different legendary studios across the US and soaking in the influences of the city.
However, the resulting songs make the Foos' traditional punchy sound feel a bit flabby. It's almost as if you can hear the influences from these different cities coming through in the music, but the emphasis is too much on the traditional Foos formula that they all kind of blend together into your generic arena rock.
Most of these things can be sidestepped with songs like Something From Nothing or Congregation, but considering that the very last record Wasting Light saw the band getting back into their raw form, this complete 180 caused a lot of fans to mentally check out after they were done binging the TV series on HBO.
The Foo Fighters certainly weren't suffering after this record, but this felt like a good idea on paper that made for a bad execution on repeated listens.