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The Foo Fighters’ hiatus may not have lasted very long but Dave Grohl sure got a lot done. In that time he recorded material with Queens of the Stone Age, RDGLDGRN and Ghost, produced material for the Zac Brown Band and even had a short stint as a talk show host. However his biggest project during this period was undoubtedly Sound City.

Telling the story of the titular studio, Sound City is Grohl’s directorial debut. Sound City is where Nirvana recorded their classic album Nevermind, which would propel Grohl to rock stardom, and there’s no doubt watching the film that Grohl still holds a deep affection for the studio. Sound City documents the major highs and lows of the studio, including details on the recording of many classic albums including works by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Rick Springfield. The films’s strengths however come not from simply documenting these artists time in the studio, but actively showing what made Sound City a particularly good place to record music. Much of this focus is given to the Neve 8028 console, one of only four in the world, and Grohl manages to effectively show just what made the studio, and that console in particular, special.

Unfortunately, that is the one of film’s few strong points. It is clear that Grohl has a lot of affection for the subject but is not the best at showing it. The most glaring moment of amateurism is when Grohl is interviewing Rupert Neve, the creator of the Neve 8028 console that much of the film is centred around. As Neve is discussing how the board works, the film cuts to Grohl making a silly face while subtitles inform the audience that he is a high school dropout. This is no doubt supposed to paint Grohl as a loveable everyman but instead comes off as extremely unprofessional. It not only makes it seem as though the film is scared to tackle anything too difficult for the audience to comprehend, something that a documentary should never be afraid of doing, but also comes off as extremely disrespectful towards Neve and the subject matter.

The film is full of interviews from a wide variety of artists who have recorded at Sound City, many of whom Grohl has previously worked with. While most of these are interesting and provide some insight into the various musicians’ recording processes, a large amount of interview time is given to a small amount of musicians. While this is ok in some circumstances, people like Mick Fleetwood, Rick Springfield and producer Butch Vig have a lot to say, some musicians get an unnecessary amount of screen time. This is especially jarring when these musicians are frequent collaborators with Grohl, such as Josh Homme and Trent Reznor, who is heavily praised in the film. This also means that some big names are pushed to the side. You have to question why big names like Corey Taylor and Lars Ulrich are in the film, when they probably have around five minutes of screen time combined. Upon researching for this review, I found that Rivers Cuomo was one of the musicians interviewed, whereas I literally don’t remember seeing him at all.

These interviews also take time away from the real stars of the film, the people who actually worked at Sound City. While most of these people do get a decent amount of screen time, I feel as though they should have been the main focus of the film over the celebrities, most of whom don’t know anywhere near as much about the recording process.

As the film starts to discuss the closure of Sound City and digital versus tape recording, the cracks really start to show. Grohl’s holier-than-thou attitude towards what he considers to be the “right” way to record music takes away from what should be the focus of the film. Suddenly we’ve switched gears to a film all about the dangers of digital recording. Except Trent Reznor of course, he’s Dave’s buddy. Grohl’s argument of course is that Reznor is doing something different with the technology; he’s using it as a tool rather than a crutch. This of course, ignores the many other artists who just do that. Here, Grohl shows not only that he is extremely smug about his recording choices, but that he is a hypocrite, afraid to defend his beliefs against a friend and co-worker.

Sound City’s arguments against digital recording are shaky at best. It states that anybody can record music now as if that’s a bad thing. The main argument is that it takes away the human element of music. You can now go onto your computer and remove any imperfections. This ignores the fact that you don’t have to do that at all. The film focuses on the negatives of digital recording but accidentally shows some major advantages and, as such, completely fails to sell the audience on the idea that it is a bad thing.

The worst part though is that Grohl completely fails to show us why he thinks tape recording is better. Why is using the Neve console better when it is so much easier to go digital. The film has the perfect opportunity to show us during the last half hour when, after Sound City closes, Grohl purchases the console and gets many of the musicians featured in the film to record the soundtrack album. Here Grohl could put the focus on the production of the album, explaining what he thinks the advantages to tape recording are. Instead, he decides to focus on how cool it is that he gets to hang out with Rick Springfield Paul McCartney. Once again, this makes it seem as though Grohl isn’t taking the subject seriously, by instead putting the focus on himself.

Overall, Sound City is a well-intentioned failure. It’s clear that Dave Grohl really does have an affection for the topic, but does not in any way show the audience why. While he has a surprisingly low presence during the film, when he is featured, he becomes the main focus and any discussion on the studio, the console or the recording process is side-lined. Some of the details behind many of the classic albums recorded at Sound City are very interesting, but you would be better off finding those details somewhere else, as no one topic in this film is given enough time to be truly satisfying.