Rolling Stone's Best Foo Songs a Sin for Fans

While reading a Rolling Stone list article online of the 10 best Foo Fighters songs, I was excited to read the article — until a blatant mistake ruined the entire article for me.

The introduction paragraph to the article was explaining the unexpectedness of Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl to become one of the most vital and reverent rock stars of the next two decades following the suicide of Kurt Cobain. Though a good point, Rolling Stone said this later in the paragraph:

"But in the months following Cobain's death Dave Grohl recorded a demo tape under the name Foo Fighters; later he recruited Germs guitarist Pat Smear and the rhythm section from Sunny Deal Real Estate and began touring clubs."

The error rooted within the article is that there is no such band called "Sunny Deal Real Estate." The correct name of the band is Sunny Day Real Estate, which is a Seattle-based band formed in 1992 and whose album "Diary" is the seventh best selling album released by Sub Pop.

As a fan of Sunny Day Real Estate, I was extremely disappointed in Rolling Stone's careless mistake. They also did not give mention as to who the members of Sunny Day Real Estate's rhythm section were — Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith.

The list of songs they chose were decent, though I disagree on the order in which they were presented. Each song contained a brief description of what made them so memorable and popular. Rolling Stone did an average job in these short song synopses; however they made another mistake on No. 9 of the list.

No. 9, which was the song "Learn to Fly," contained an error about the music video for the song. The humorous video that took the band to a new level of stardom features Tenacious D disguised as airplane janitors; however, Rolling Stone misidentified Grohl and Mendel as the janitors.

It is an easy mistake to make though, seeing as Grohl plays six different characters in the video:

• a flamboyant flight attendant
• the careless pilot
• an overweight woman who can't quite seem to fit in her seat
• himself
• a young girl with ponytails starstruck over Grohl
• the FBI agent that catches Tenacious D

The error has since been corrected in the article; however, the band Sunny Deal Real Estate still exists out there in the music world for some reason. Readers have commented on the mistake under the article as well. One reader by the name of Stephanie wrote, "*Sunny DAY Real Estate." She clearly shares the same level of disappointment as I do.

Was this the result of poor knowledge and research or just a careless typo? Whatever the reason, the unknown writer of this list article should have proofread his work. How many different people at Rolling Stone did this go past before it was published online? The writer of this article should make his own version of "Learn to Fly" and call it "Learn to Write."