On the ladder of this year's Grammy controversies, Dave Grohl's apparent dismissal of electronic music during his acceptance speech for Foo Fighters winning Best Rock Album is several steps below Chris Brown and Nicki Minaj's bizarre, Catholic-baiting fantasia of WTF-ness. But it ruffled enough feathers to convince Grohl that he needed to clarify his words nearly a week later. In a press release that appears to have been written by Grohl himself, the singer-guitarist-drummer expresses amazement that his speech "evoked such caps-lock postboard rage" before insisting that it had nothing to do with slamming any specific kind of music, but rather modern-day recording techniques:
I love music. I love ALL kinds of music. From Kyuss to Kraftwerk, Pinetop Perkins to Prodigy, Dead Kennedys to Deadmau5…..I love music. Electronic or acoustic, it doesn't matter to me. The simple act of creating music is a beautiful gift that ALL human beings are blessed with. And the diversity of one musician's personality to the next is what makes music so exciting and…..human.
That's exactly what I was referring to. The "human element". That thing that happens when a song speeds up slightly, or a vocal goes a little sharp. That thing that makes people sound like PEOPLE. Somewhere along the line those things became "bad" things, and with the great advances in digital recording technology over the years they became easily "fixed". The end result? I my humble opinion…..a lot of music that sounds perfect, but lacks personality. The one thing that makes music so exciting in the first place.
And, unfortunately, some of these great advances have taken the focus off of the actual craft of performance. Look, I am not Yngwie Malmsteen. I am not John Bonham. Hell…I'm not even Josh Groban, for that matter. But I try really fucking hard so that I don't have to rely on anything but my hands and my heart to play a song. I do the best that I possibly can within my limitations, and accept that it sounds like me. Because that's what I think is most important. It should be real, right? Everybody wants something real.
I don't know how to do what Skrillex does (though I fucking love it) but I do know that the reason he is so loved is because he sounds like Skrillex, and that's badass. We have a different process and a different set of tools, but the "craft" is equally as important, I'm sure. I mean…..if it were that easy, anyone could do it, right? (See what I did there?)
Not only does Grohl not hate electronic music, the guy even "fucking loves" Skrillex. And with that, Grohl will likely set off another round of online jabbering from a different set of critics.