Rob's Album Of The Week: Sound City

How many albums can you say have the two surviving members of Nirvana, two members from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Queens The Stone Age's Josh Homme, Fear's Lee Ving, Masters Of Reality's Chris Goss, Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nix, Rick Springfield, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and some guy named Paul McCartney? Well now you can say there's one. The soundtrack to the music documentary Sound City directed by the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl is currently out and this ensemble cast of musicians made one hell of an album together. Every song is all over the place in variety and style but it the end its a perfect rock & roll compilation showcasing some of the best talents on this planet.

Grohl was inspired to make the documentary after he purchased a bunch of recording equipment after the legendary Sound City Studios in Los Angeles closed it's doors in 2011. If you don't know much about Sound City Studios, it served as the birthplace of some of the greatest albums in music history. Nirvana's Nevermind, Neil Young's After The Gold Rush, Dio's Holy Diver, Rage Against The Machine's self-titled debut, Tom Petty's Wildflowers and Weezer's Pinkerton were made there just to name a few. The soundtrack was recorded at Grohl's Studio 606 featuring musicians who made music at Sound City in the past using the equipment Grohl bought from the old studio. The production quality is impeccable and every song hits you like a ton of bricks, you can definitely get the feeling that nobody was messing around right when you press play.

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This is the part that makes me think and I become extremely pensive, it's a very methodical process. Every chord, every beat, every lyric and every strum, which songs get recognized and which ones are simply left to the imagination? In the end it's my decision, so my apologies. Anyways enough with my exclamations and trepidations, here goes something:

"Heaven and All" features a dream power trio with Grohl on the drums along with Robert Levon Been and Peter Hayes from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on bass and guitar with Been on vocals, this song has the power to crush mountains into dust and I haven't been able to stop listening to it ever since I got the album. "You Can't Fix This" has Stevie Nix's sultry and soulful voice with Grohl and Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters and The Wallflowers' Rami Jaffee backing her up on a track all about loss. "The Man That Never Was" has Rick Springfield in his mid 60s turning the amps up to 11 and rocking out like a wildman with the Foo Fighters playing along, one of the most refreshing songs that I've heard so far this year. "Mantra" has a holy trinity of modern rock with Grohl, Homme and Reznor performing a 7 minute opus that is a great clash between the amplified sounds of Grohl & Homme and the industrial abrasion from Reznor. As I always say, don't take my word as gospel on just a select few. Every song off of Sound City's soundtrack is bound to blow your mind.

You can purchase a streaming copy of the Sound City documentary at the link provided at the beginning of this piece of music journalism and you can buy a copy of the soundtrack from the film on ITunes. Get the soundtrack, watch the documentary and just enjoy it all. Sound City will make your jaw drop a million times and you'll be asking for more.

- Rob Duguay