Violet Grohl brings the 90s back to life on Be Sweet To Me

Bathed in the sound of music since childhood, the 20-year-old has been honing her craft for as many years, appearing on stage with her father’s band, the Foo Fighters, on multiple occasions – and even lending her voice to their 2023 single, “Show Me How”. A job experience that has prepared her for the taunting exercise of live performances, as her first project, Be Sweet To Me, demonstrates. Every song seems to be conceived specifically for gigs in basement bars, one of the many feats that render it quintessentially 90s.

From the cover – a black and white picture of the musician beneath a burgundy banner stating the title – to the song titles and the production, Grohl’s inspirations jump out of your ears immediately. We can pick out The Breeders in the grunge tribute, “Bug in the Cake”, dreampop in “Pool of My Dreams”, or “Cool Buzz”, a hardcore-infused complaint of a still too-male rock scene, delivered over simple production, gritty guitar riffs and raw yet aloof vocals.

But more than a love letter to the 90s, Violet Grohl’s Be Sweet To Me pays homage to the rock genre as a whole, to music and the women who have come before her. It adds a veneer of modern pop on top of the organic nature of the decade, a twist on structures we know all too well. With producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Yves Tumor, Kim Gordon), they picked out lyrics out of a hat (literally) and fused them into one another. The result, far from being a messy pile of references, turned out to be a dynamic Frankenstein-like wistful yet whimsical universe.

That is when the artist is at her strongest; in this in-between space of sounds and eras, melding odd parts into a whole, the way she does on the two-part finale, “Plastic Couch”; a soft ballad that turns into a Scandinavian metal storm. In a similar vein, “Mobile Star”, the most enticing song of the album to me, feels strange, at once ethereal and punctuated by a distorted xylophone imitating a flip-phone ring.

Anti-nail-biting kits, a fictional vengeful prostitute and fear of death, the musician takes any experience as fuel for her ideas. Her songwriting feels more akin to worldbuilding; from universal experiences to strange observations, the 11-song long record feels like an amuse-bouche, teasing us with Grohl’s limitless creativity and playfulness. Brimming with heightened emotions and vivid colors, Violet Grohl’s surrealist universe promises to hide many treasures and surprises alike, yet to be discovered.