 Nine of the songs in the album were composed before or during Grohl 's tenure with Nirvana , and existed in demos created by Grohl on his home 8 @-@ track tape recorder . The only compositions done after Cobain 's death were " This Is a Call " , " I 'll Stick Around " , " X @-@ Static " and " <unk> " . The music mostly followed a hard rock sound with the soft @-@ loud dynamics seen in Nirvana tracks such as " Smells Like Teen Spirit " and " Heart @-@ Shaped Box " . Variants include the melancholic " Exhausted " , which Grohl defined as a song that 's " sad but makes you feel good " . 
