Studio Album · No. 8
Sonic Highways Songwriting Credits by Foo Fighters
Produced by Butch Vig, Foo Fighters · Engineered by James Brown (recording, mixing), Reuben Cohen (mastering), Gavin Lurssen (mastering)
Holds writing credit on 8 of 8 tracks
Authorship Breakdown 8 / 8 documented
Scored across the 8 tracks with documented writers, by whether Foo Fighters carries a lyricist or composer credit.
Share of the 8 tracks where a band member is credited, by role.
By the Numbers
Sonic Highways was produced by Butch Vig and Foo Fighters, with James Brown handling recording and mixing, and Reuben Cohen and Gavin Lurssen co-mastering. Created alongside an eight-episode HBO documentary series of the same name, each of the album's eight tracks was recorded in a different US city, Chicago, Washington D.C., Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, and New York, each with a local musical collaborator. Guests include Gary Clark Jr., Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Joe Walsh, Zac Brown, and others. The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with 190,000 first-week copies.
Sonic Highways is the eighth studio album by Foo Fighters, released in November 2014 on RCA/Roswell Records and produced by Butch Vig. Each of the eight tracks was recorded in a different American city (Chicago, Washington D.C., Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, New York) with local musicians and local cultural figures contributing to the recording, accompanied by an HBO documentary series of the same name directed by Grohl. Grohl wrote all material; the album's concept, drawing on the specific musical heritage and cultural context of each city, was more ambitious as a documentary project than as a standalone musical statement, with critics noting that the thematic framework occasionally overwhelmed the song content. 'Something from Nothing' and 'Outside' were the principal singles; the album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 130,000 first-week sales and has been certified platinum in the United States. Sonic Highways represents Grohl's most explicit engagement with American music history as a thematic subject and the band's closest approach to documentary-rock territory in the tradition of Springsteen's Nebraska or Cash's Ride This Train.