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Music Picks Picks by Sarah Marx and Michael Stabile Foo Fighters There's Nothing Left to Lose There's nothing left to ... the imagination in the Foo Fighters' latest attempt to cram rock & roll down the throats of PSAT all-stars and edgier fans of WB's evening lineup. When former members of Nirvana, Sunny Day Real Estate and Alanis Morissette's tour band came together to record this year, somebody felt like kicking some ass. While interest in pummeling booty as the chief artistic motivation is hardly unique to these alternaveterans, this album's frantic, guitar-centric choruses, cymbal-heavy breakaways and splintered vocals do make it seem as though Dave Grohl and the others are, indeed, "dying to get [their] blood on you." Tucked amid Fight Club rehearsal tracks are radio-ready tunes with saccharine choruses to satisfy any inebriated young partygoer riding home over the Bay Bridge. (SM) Third Eye Blind Blue So maybe the guitar part in one of the songs slinks past VU's "Sweet Jane" by a single note, and maybe a song about waiting to find out whether a girlfriend is knocked up contains a sample from some sort of a boys' church choir for purposes unknown. The fact is, there is something unavoidably well-intentioned, dependable and above-board about Third Eye Blind that absolves the band of all indications of creative deficiency, including one especially curious attempt to sound metal (nobody puts Baby in a corner). While Blue does not boast as many doo-laden hymns as its eponymous predecessor, it has enough pop high jinks, gadgets and monosyllabic declarations of loves lost and won to remind hometown fans who their daddy is. (SM) Metallica S&M How can you pass up a double-disc set by Metallica backed by the San Francisco Symphony? Grumble Albert Hall and yell Unplugged all you want. Metallica rocks, and how can you pass up nine-minute versions of classics like "Master of Puppets" and "Enter Sandman" when they're bolstered by horn quartets. The highbrow/lowbrow fusion would make even Barthes smile. This is an amazing, amazing thing and didn't get the attention it deserved when it happened. Hopefully, the set will get its proper due. (MS) [ San Francisco | MetroActive Central | Archives ]