i‘ve only had a couple of encounters with dave grohl over the years, but they were both pretty positive.
first: i interviewed him once about a decade ago.
he was as cool and real as you’d expect.
second: i was working the red carpet at clive davis’s pre-grammy shindig.
dave came sprinting down the line to catch up with his bandmates and kibbitz with other artists — including the jonas brothers, of all things.
they were rough-housing and grab-assing right in front of me.
noogies may or may not have been involved.
that’s a long way of saying dg seems like a truly good egg.
a guy who’s genuinely happy.
and who wants to make others happy.
that might be part of why medicine at midnight is so damn upbeat and poppy.
supposedly it was intended to celebrate the band’s 25th anniversary last year.
then you-know-what happened and everything got postponed.
so now i assume — based on the title of this 10th album — that grohl and co. see this as a way to offer something optimistic in these fucked-up times.
but i don’t know. whatever. the motive doesn’t really matter.
what i do know: most folks are either gonna love this or hate it.
me, i’m cool with it.
most of the songs are pretty damn catchy.
there aren’t too many ballads (which i’ve never considered dave’s strong suit).
and it rocks out often enough and hard enough for me.
there’s also a big ’70s vibe that reminds me a bit of drummer taylor hawkins’ solo stuff.
that’s probably not a coincidence.
bottom line: it’s exuberant and dynamic and lively.
and with just nine songs in 37 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome or pad things out with a bunch of crappy filler, experimental garbage and overblown grandeur.
it’s short and sweet and snappy and makes its point and gets out of the way.
and if he were some teen-pop dipshit, everybody would be kissing his ass and writing that this is the hopeful album we really need right now and blah blah blah gag me.
but since it’s dave grohl, they have to gripe that’s it not as good as (insert old album title here).
thankfully, i suspect dave couldn’t give two shits.
he’s too busy being enjoying his life.
good for him.
