So I’ve been listening to the new Foo Fighters album, Echoes, Silence, Paitience, Grace, for the past 6 weeks since its release.

Buy It!

What a fantastic album. Pure Foo Fighters at their best. From the opening single, The Pretneder, the album pummels along with some great hard rock songs, especially the poppy, can’t-help-it-but-love-it new single “Long Road To Ruin”.

The album then mellows in and out, with some tracks like “Come Alive” and “But, Honestly” that start off quiet and end with a bang.

When listening to the album, it’s apparent that the Foo Fighters keep things simple, like they always have. They’ve grown and developed and are the real deal, but the simplicity of their music is still there.

Grohl’s repetition in his lyrics is apparent in almost EVERY SONG. It’s the kind of repetition that gets your head moving and your mind singing along. The album is very, very easy to get into because of this.

Now many critics argue that this simplicity is garbage pop radio. And sometimes, they’d be right. For some reason, however, the Foo Fighters always pull their simple, happy pop-rock off without too much criticism from the critical mass.

Even seasoned musicians, who will always pick apart a band for having too simple a sound, seem to have exceptions for Foo. They still manage to get down with them.

While watching the new video for Long Road To Ruin, I began thinking about how much a band’s image is tied to their perception of their music. Seriously, it’s something that creeps into why or why not we may like a band; many of our dislikes are a combination of the bands sound and their perceived image.

Ever since Dave Grohl released the first Foo Fighters album (which he put together himself), he has carved a don’t-take-me-too-seriously approach in marketing the band. Remember the music videos that the Foo Fighters have put out over the years?

“Big Me”, which poked fun at the Mentos Commercials.

“Learn To Fly”, with the band playing several characters.

Right off the bat, the band didn’t take themselves TOO seriously. I’m not saying they were complete and total goofballs, but they had fun. They created a fun, good ole’ time rock n roll kind of perception about them.

And for many years, that’s the image they had. No one ever put them into “best band around” categories, but they continued to produce good music that was fun and accessible.

Now, 10 years later, they are maturing as a band and putting out some fantastic music. Still simple, still the “good feeling” Foo we’ve all come to love. But now we have so much more respect for them. They played their music and had fun with it. No one really has anything bad to say about Foo because of this.

That’s why they have everyone’s respect. Because they never acted bigger or better than who they were. They acted like you and me and our neighbor, playing rock music and having a good time while doing it.

So keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking about the “image” you want to convey. If you want to dress up in make up and create a film like dramatic presence that makes you seem larger than life, then by all means go ahead.

Just remember that the more serious you get about this image, the more serious your fans (or people in general) are going to be when it comes time to criticize you. And sometimes, criticism can be hard to take.