Medicine at Midnight

Medicine at Midnight is the tenth studio album by Foo Fighters, released in February 2021 on Roswell/RCA Records and produced by Greg Kurstin. It is the band's most disco and funk-influenced album, drawing on 1970s dance-rock references including David Bowie's Let's Dance era and the funk-rock of Thin Lizzy and Queen, and released during the COVID-19 pandemic to a digital-first commercial environment that gave it a more modest promotional cycle than previous releases. Grohl wrote all material; the album's 9 tracks run to approximately 37 minutes (the band's shortest studio album) and the compressed format was intended to give the new direction a focused statement rather than a sprawling demonstration of it. 'Shame Shame,' 'Medicine at Midnight,' and 'Waiting on a War' were the principal tracks; the album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 53,000 first-week units, a smaller opening than recent albums reflecting the pandemic promotional environment. Medicine at Midnight is regarded by critics as an interesting stylistic experiment whose commercial scale was compromised by timing rather than as a peak statement, and the Bowie-influenced funk direction was not pursued on the subsequent album. Medicine at Midnight stands as the most adventurous stylistic experiment in the Foo Fighters catalog, a genuine attempt to interrogate the band's identity by placing it within a different sonic tradition, and while its commercial scale was constrained by the pandemic context, its demonstration that Grohl could pursue creative curiosity beyond the rock formula remains one of the more interesting late-career choices in mainstream rock.