Unpopular opinion: Pain, hardship and trauma creates the best art, and the best albums.
It's obvious to me, that But Here We Are is a much much better album than Your Favourite Toy, and much to do with the pain and trauma that Dave and the band were going through during 2021-2023ish with especially the loss of Taylor and his mom etc.
As tragic as that is, it really brings out the creativity, the sadness, the somber and the melacolic, which in turns creates amazing music. Part of what made Nirvana great, was also Kurts inner demons and turmoil brewing, creating some of the best songs ever written.
You can disagree, and that's fine. But to me, the early days of the foos is the best, because Dave had alot of shit going on in his life, before he become the "good guy" safe rock-dad multi-millionaire lifestyle, that he sort of kind of became abit used to and frankly, made more boring music as a result.