There are few musical careers as prolific as that of Dave Grohl, who first served as the drummer of trailblazing grunge band Nirvana and then as frontman of the Foo Fighters. Thus, anyone would be able to predict that a musical project with the name “Grohl” attached would succeed.
It is precisely and exclusively because of her father’s reputation — not musical quality — that Violet Grohl’s lackluster debut record “Be Sweet To Me” was met with any degree of commercial and critical success.
The younger Grohl began her musical career in 2018 with both live and studio guest vocal performances, and recording of her debut spanned August 2024 to May 2025, the release date of which was May 29, 2026. Four singles were released during the leadup to the record’s full release, entitled “THUM,” “Applefish,” “595” and “Cool Buzz.” The record includes 11 tracks and is 31 minutes and 57 seconds long.
“Be Sweet To Me” released to moderate commercial success, with one single charting at 31 on the billboard alternative airplay chart — which ranks the 40 most played songs on rock and alternative radio stations — and the album itself reaching 16 on the UK albums chart, although it was unable to make the American Billboard 200.
The record was generally received well by critics, receiving an average rating of 74 out of 100 (far too high, as I’ll soon prove) according to metacritic.
The importance of name recognition is not a new idea, both in the music industry and elsewhere. It seems the most popular artists can release almost anything nowadays and achieve immense commercial success, just because of their name recognition in popular music.
Such is how Grohl achieved the amount of success she did. Her surname served as a substitute for talent, which she evidently lacks based on the quality of her debut.
“Be Sweet To Me” begins with the track “THUM,” which is a truly horrible song. The riffs of Grohl’s guest guitarist are subpar and covered in layers of insufferable distortion. And that is not to say distortion itself is unpleasant to hear, as the guitars of traditional grunge — the genre Grohl takes great inspiration from and the genre her father helped pioneer — and all varieties of metal utilize high distortion yet sound remarkable.
It is also evident from the first verse, and especially the chorus, of “THUM” that Grohl is just an average singer. And although that isn’t a problem for many genres or styles of music, if vocals are going to be the focal point of a track, fine isn’t good enough. The intention of this entire record was clearly to have every instrument emphasize the vocals, which would be the most important piece of the album, yet the vocals are not nearly good enough for that.
The second track, “595,” is similarly bad. Although it is marginally better than its predecessor, the use and bastardization of “Creep”-esque guitar blasts taints the listening experience greatly.
It is with the third track “Bug In The Cake” that the lyrics of this record, from start to finish, are just meaningless nonsense, and not surreal or strange like traditional grunge lyrics. Especially when the verses and not just the chorus are taken into account, even Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a masterclass in clear and sensical prose by comparison. This theme is seen in every single track of the entire album.
The following is verse one of “Bug In The Cake”: “Roll up a rug, fall out of love, sneak in a handle / boxes of tape, bug in the cake, light me a candle / broken vase inside a truck / do you think I give a shit?” Or the first verse of “Mobile Star”: “Lay me in down, mobile stars / crack in my mind, stay as you are / bed is unmade, forgive me now / permission to live, you tell me how.”
After the third track, the record marginally increases in quality, transitioning from unbearable to just subpar, with effectively the same criticisms as were applied to the first and third tracks remaining relevant.
I give it a 2.5 out of ten.
