A week after the Foo Fighters teased disparate snippets of a new song on their website, the band has united them into “Your Favorite Toy,” a three-minute hard-rocker that’s also the title track of their upcoming 12th album. “Get back, hear that boy?” Grohl sings over a driving guitar line. “Someone threw away your favorite toy for good.” The song, which will officially come out with the rest of the 10-track album on April 24, is the sort of taut, electrifying blend of rock-for-the-sake-of-rock, Seventies-era glitter metal and power pop that Dave Grohl and company have perfected in recent decades.
“‘Your Favorite Toy’ really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album,” Grohl said in a statement. “We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
The band recorded the album, which includes the previously released “Asking for a Friend,” at home with co-producer Oliver Roman. It’s the band’s first recording since new drummer Ilan Rubin joined the lineup.
Your Favorite Toy will arrive two weeks before the group performs at the Welcome to Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida, on May 8. They’ll also play Bottlerock Napa Valley on May 23 before embarking on a run of European dates. The Foos will return to North America for an Aug. 4 gig at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium with gigs running through late September. Queens of the Stone Age and Mannequin Pussy are the support acts for most of the shows.
Your Favorite Toy track list:
1. “Caught in the Echo”
2. “Of All People”
3. “Window”
4. “Your Favorite Toy”
5. “If You Only Knew”
6. “Spit Shine”
7. “Unconditional”
8. “Child Actor”
9. “Amen, Caveman”
10. “Asking for a Friend”
North West with her mom at a Lakers game in 2024
North West Was Born To Be a Star
As the celebrity children of the 2010s come of age and follow in their parents’ footsteps, we’ve arrived at the next generation of nepo babies. There’s no better example right now than North West, scion of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s celebrity empire, who, at 12 years old, seems poised to become a fixture in the future of not only music but also fashion. Take her recent single, “Piercing on My Hand,” which arrived on DSPs on Feb. 6, and was reported as a soul-sampled track produced by Ye and Will Frenchman. The single was reportedly released via Gamma., the independent music company co-founded by former Apple exec Larry Jackson in 2023 — the same company Ye recently partnered with for the release of his upcoming album, Bully. She also joined her dad onstage in Mexico City to debut “Piercing on My Hand” live. It’s a position that’s by now familiar for North, who previously appeared on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures single “Talking/Once Again,” which reached Number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also charted in the U.K.
Perhaps this all represents a maximalist approach to the challenge of raising kids in the public eye. While it’s common to see celebrities attempt, with varying levels of success, to shield their children from the limelight, North has been slowly learning how to navigate being born into fame. This week, People reported that her mom, Kim Kardashian, filed applications in January to trademark the company name “NOR11” for use in the sale of clothing and accessories, including dresses, footwear, loungewear, hats, watches, jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics cases. North has already gained attention for her sense of style, raising eyebrows after revealing piercings on her middle finger last September, prompting online criticism because of her age. Her debut single is partly inspired by the controversy.
In addition to “Piercing on My Hand,” North has since racked up a handful of production credits for the underground rap staple Babyxsosa, including “Tokyo” and “Viral,” released as loosies on social platforms last month. The latter samples Chief Keef’s “Love Sosa” with a kind of dense, atmospheric texture that also recalls “Hold My Liquor,” the Chief Keef-assisted cut from Kanye’s 2013 opus Yeezus. North West’s producer tag, an anime voice squeaking “North-Chan” in Japanese with the sweetness of a kids’ video game, is already on its way to becoming iconic. In January, she landed a notable early placement as a producer on “Justswagup,” a single by Mag!c and Lil Novi — Lil Wayne’s son, who is 16 years old, putting him, like North, squarely in the “next-gen rap royalty” conversation.
Last month, North went on Instagram Live and answered questions from her followers about her journey learning how to make music, sharing snippets of in-progress beats, and describing more about her inspirations. That she’s so far leaned into the sound of her generational cohort, a frenetic, almost hyperpop-infused take on hip-hop, is more evidence of the genre’s changing sound. For their part, both of North’s parents are offering their support. On Monday, Kim Kardashian shared a clip on her Instagram of her listening to North’s song in the car, despite what would appear to be ongoing acrimony between Ye and Kim.
North is less a carbon copy of her parents than a Gen Alpha translation. At 12 years old, she was raised in the feed, is fluent in online culture, and is learning early that identity is something you can iterate in public. The nepo-baby conversation, which typically ascribes unearned privilege and access to the children of celebs, falls short of describing what’s actually interesting about North West. She represents how childhood, branding, and art are collapsing into a single timeline, and she is already moving through it like it’s her native language.