Friday, April 22, 2011

"Arlandria": What're all the Foos about?

"Arlandria" Gets A New Theme Song.

Last week with the release of the new Foo Fighters album Wasting Light, the lame-stream media just caught on to what we reported several months ago, when the hardcore Foo-sers among the twitteratti sent us a heads up about the track listing: there's a new (soon to be hit) song entitled "Arlandria".

Local attention about this news has focused on the kind of details that our celebrity-fueled news tends to nowadays: where local-boy-turned-rock-star-wunderkind and Foo Fighter bandleader Dave Grohl went to school, ate lunch and shopped for late night Mentos and Slurpees. Most seem to have missed the point that Dave et al recorded two Grammy-award-winning albums just up the street that have contained more than just one local reference. The Foos first mentioned our neighborhood on one of these locally generated albums in the lyric to "Headwires" from 1998's There is Nothing Left to Loose. "The Sun is on Arlandria" they sang.  It's been the motto for The Arlandrian ever since.

Still others decide to diss the reference:
"ARLANDRIA: The red-headed stepchild of Mount Vernon Avenue. It has neither the smug boutiqueness of Del Ray nor the understated poshness of Arlington Ridge. But one thing Arlandria has that these others do not: A FREAKING FOO FIGHTERS SONG NAMED AFTER IT."
On behalf of red-heads and stepchildren every, we bristle at the use of that pejorative, while at the same time shaking our collective heads at the author's confusion. If anything the song is an anthem against such attitudes. Or it is for us. We're not likely to bump into Grohl in line getting a sandwich again anytime soon, but we'll ask if we do. Rolling Stone says there are references to "the responsibility to leave things better than when you came in – all over this album." Carpe Diem. Acres of Diamonds. Stop Wasting Light. An expression of the ethos of our community. We're proud to be in such good company. We love the reference and we love the song.

As for a review of the music, you're unlikely to find one. But as the adage goes, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." And in 21st Century you don't have to settle for reviews, you can check it out for yourself. With apologies to M. Jagger, today's music has gotten on the cloud. Foo Fighters have put "Arlandria" and the entire Wasting Light album up on the web for all to stream for free.

Arlandria by Foo Fighters

Or you can see the live performance of "Arlandria" from the Daily Show earlier this week. Or this live video performance of the entire album Wasting Light. Or a 110-minute concert from the Late Show with David Letterman's Ed Sullivan theater (complete with this poignant introduction about recovering from heart surgery from Letterman for his favorite song from his favorite band). And if that's not enough, there's no reason not to go back and visit this 1995 performance of Weenie Beenie, perhaps on your way to Weenie Beenie.

1 comment:

Mardigan1 said...

Dave Grohl is a genius!!!