Tuesday, April 12th 2011
News: Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters Give Fans Master Tapes To ‘Wasting Light’
The Foo Fighters‘ new album Wasting Light (out today) hardly looks like a 21st-century album release. The groovy multicolored cover art looks like it would be more at home in a disco, and a sticker on the front proudly states that it was “Recorded Entirely On Analog Tape In Dave’s Garage.”
As if to emphasize the oddity, copies of Wasting Light are also packaged with a piece of the actual master tape. Yes, really — the album’s master has been sliced into “a million fucking pieces,” according to Dave Grohl, and redistributed to the masses.
Analog collectors, take note: you’ll receive an inch or two of magnetic recording tape, already speculated to be AMPEX or Quantegy Grand Master 456 Studio Audio Tape for use in a 16-track recorder.
While its true that Grohl and company did indeed destroy their master — the closest thing they’ve got is second-generation backup reels — they do also have digital backups, just in case they’re needed for Guitar Hero or other non-analog-friendly endeavors.
Fans looking to band together to see if they can make a longer piece of completed music with their tape fragments have their work cut out for them. As Grohl tells LA Weekly:
“They’d probably get one note, or one drumbeat. I mean, the pieces of tape are like an inch by an inch piece of tape. We chop it up into a million fucking pieces … if a million people got together and put it back together, they’d get a whole album.”
Lest you think the Foos are eschewing modern technology altogether, you can listen to the entirety of Wasting Light here, as well as a stream of the kickass outtake track Better Off. You can also check out their performance from last night’s The Daily Show below:
Bridge Burning:
Arlandria:
Thanks to The Audio Perv for the clips!
The documentary was also very good. Good story, check it out.
I really can’t remember the last album release that got me this excited. Everything’s been perfect, regular updates from Dave & Co., the fantastic documentary, little bonuses like this. and of course the album is (In my opinion) one of, if not their best. All I can say is they’d better do some more UK dates, as the few festivals/MK dates are way out of my price range/too far away/aqfully timed for me, and I can’t bear the idea of not seeing them this tour.
It’s such a gimmick…I love it, I had no desire to actually buy this album until right now
Am I the only one that got two pieces of the tape? I feel special :D
I got 2 pieces of tape too….didn’t even know what they were until last night a few hours after i got the album! :D
I love the new album, but I hate the case for it. How it’s set up makes it impossible to take the CD out without scratching it. I just bought it 20 minutes ago, put it in my car CD player for the ride home, took it out, put it back in the case, took it out to rip it to my computer, and it’s already all scratched. But the album is EPIC, I’m just pissed cos it’s gonna start skipping after I listen to it 5 times.
Silly monkey, stop buying CDs then.