L'Histoire du Rock + Bonus: Foo Fighters

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Is Nothing Left To Lose

The Colour And The Shape

Wasting Light

Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace In Your Honour

There Is Nothing Left To Lose One By One

Foo Fighters: This is a Call Single Sonic Highways

The Pretender

The song I chose to examine is called the pretender. I picked this particular because it is my favorite song by the foo fighters. Here is a link to see the official video clip The Pretender - Foo Fighters. The Pretender managed to hit number 37 in the Hot 100 Hits in the United States of America. The composition of the song happened like this, The Foo Fighters published a slightly different demo of the song called Silver Heart during the pre-production of the album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. The Foo Fighters producer, Gil Norton, said "The chorus was there, but the verse and the middle hadn’t been written!” According to records, the song use to be a lot slower but during a ten day break in the recordings of April 2007 but as Dave Grohl relistened to it, he thought to himself that the song needed a little uptempo. Dave Grohl then spent time developing “Silver Heart”. The next week, the foo fighters recorded a demo of the song which had by now been renamed to the pretender which Norton approved and all this led to the recording of the song the very next day.

The song is written in the key A minor with showcases of changing dynamics. The meaning behind the song was never revealed. During an interview with XFM, they tried to make him give the meaning away but he said this: "The Pretender", but alluded its roots go to current political unrest. Dave Grohl also said: "That’s the thing with lyrics, you never want to give away specifics, because it’s nice for people to have their own idea or interpretation of the song. But, you know, everyone’s been fu***d over before and I think a lot of people feel fu***d over right now and they’re not getting what they were promised, and so something to do with that." The Foo Fighters were not planning to add the pretender to their album but Dave Grohl desperately needed an opening song and thought the pretender would be perfect! It then became everybody’s favorite song on the album.

Awards

It was chosen as number 47 on the Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs of 2007. The song was a 2008 Grammy Award nominee for Best Rock Song and Record of the Year. It also won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance the same year. This song was also number 94 on MTV Asia‍ ’​s list of Top 100 Hits.

Structure

The song goes Slow Introduction / Verse / Verse / Build Up / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Bridge / Build Up / Intro(again) / Chorus / Chorus / Chorus / Outro.

On the page above, you can see the top charts of 2007 where the pretender struck the nation!

Music Video

In the music video, you see the foo fighters performing the pretender in an aeroplane hangar. Later on, the police comes in to tell the foo fighters they’re playing too loud but the foo fighters keep on playing and the police charges at the rock band but as the music hits the chorus, liquid explodes all over the stage as the police get thrown back and the video clip ends on Dave Grohl smashing his electric guitar(Gibson Firebird) against the wall as he falls to his knees. The effects in the video were made by Mechnology Visual Effects in Burbank in California. The music video was directed by Sam Brown.

THE END!