Anybody who doesn’t believe that rock music is dead in 2015 will tell you that the biggest rock band of this century is the Foo Fighters.

“Biggest” accounting for sheer popularity, that title isn’t wrong. And as a result of this, Dave Grohl has become the biggest personality in rock. Everything he ever says or does is guaranteed a news story everywhere.

One of my most memorable Grohl moments was an award acceptance speech with the Foo Fighters at the 2012 Grammy Awards, where he famously said, “The human element of making music is what’s most important. Singing into a microphone, and learning to play an instrument, and learning to do your craft … That’s the most important thing for people to do. It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer…”

Quotes like these are what make people (like me, circa 2012) worship Grohl as a hero of rock and roll so much. He plays to the craving for “real music” that a lot of nostalgic people today think is missing in popular music.

Here’s where I think that label hits a pitfall, though: at the end of the day, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters are playing the same loud yet simple arena rock that most people have been sick of since AC/DC. As much as I love a lot of the music that the Foos have put out, their songwriting formula hasn’t changed a bit since they formed over 20 years ago.

So why, then, is this relatively generic band somehow the most iconic rock act of the millennium?

Because Grohl knows how to work his celebrity status.

Like other huge music celebrities, from Kanye West to Taylor Swift, phishing for media attention is a huge part of developing a well-crafted image. By and large, people see Grohl in a positive light, painting him with labels like “savior of rock” or “the good guy musician.” Like any other celebrity, Grohl has worked hard to create a consistent public image of himself to guarantee as much positive coverage as possible on everywhere from The New York Times arts section to your uncle’s Facebook page.

But take a few of his better-circulated stories lately and dig beyond the surface and it’s pretty easy to tell how Grohl is playing to his audience and the media’s attention to the fullest. This past weekend at his band’s Austin City Limits show, for instance, Grohl let on that he had just recorded five new songs in Austin. Other artists would hardly receive a mention for something like this, but Grohl, the scrutinized rock star that he is, got on the front page of every site out there just for this tiny tidbit of information.

It’s not just the “real” music news either. Last week Grohl made an offhand remark about “rich chicken finger-eating motherf***ers” refusing to do the wave from their box seats. This story plays to the Dave-Grohl-fights-the-corporate-machine-image well enough for it to be heavily spun into a positive light quickly — and garner a healthy amount of page views from his followers too.

Other recent Dave Grohl news stories (I won’t go into detail on them all): a petition to get Grohl a position as host of “Saturday Night Live,” a duet with Ben Kweller, a “revenge” performance with a 9th grade Battle of the Bands rival, continued updates on his injured leg (seriously, Google the phrase “Dave Grohl leg injury” and see for yourself how much coverage one guy’s broken leg can get).

There’s nothing wrong with fame and using it as a platform for more media coverage and publicity for one’s work. But when that coverage becomes less about the art and more about the celebrity, how much of a “real rock star” is he anymore?

Dave Grohl knows his audience well: people that miss when music was “real” and when throbbing arena rock was as popular as hip hop and pop are today. And truth be told, Grohl might be the closest thing we have to a modern “rock star” in the most literal sense of the term. But after the headlines pass and the final power chord is strummed, is he really any better than the artists without microphones, instruments or education?

Brett Weiser-Schlesinger is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. He can be reached by email at bweisers@syr.edu or by Twitter at @brettws.

Published on October 13, 2015 at 9:15 pm