"Alone + Easy Target." Grohl wrote this about his teenage years in Virginia. It swings between paranoid verses and a sugar-rush chorus. It’s the blueprint for everything that came after.
Wasting Light (for the raw energy) or The Colour and the Shape (for the history). End with: But Here We Are (for the tears). Avoid: Nothing. Even their bad albums have one great song.
"Come Alive." A seven-minute slow burn. It starts with a single piano key and a whispered vocal. By the end, it’s a hurricane of double bass drums and shredding. It is the best song the band has written that you’ve never heard on the radio.
A double album split between "Rock" (Disc 1) and "Acoustic" (Disc 2). Ambition meets execution. The rock disc is loud and generic; the acoustic disc is intimate and surprising.