FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
PHOTO CREDIT: Catherine McGann/Getty Images
concerns a band that I listened to a lot when I was in sixth-form college. I really like what Green Day have done through their career. They formed thirty-five years ago, so I thought that it is a perfect opportunity to explore their work! Here is some information regarding the iconic Rock/Pop-Punk band:
“Green Day is an American rock band formed in the East Bay of California in 1986 by lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt. For much of the band's career, they have been a trio with drummer Tré Cool, who replaced John Kiffmeyer in 1990 before the recording of the band's second studio album, Kerplunk (1991). Touring guitarist Jason White became a full-time member in 2012, but returned to his role as a touring member in 2016. Green Day was originally part of the late-'80s/early-'90s punk scene at the DIY 924 Gilman Street club in Berkeley, California. The band's early releases were with the independent record label Lookout! Records. In 1994, their major-label debut Dookie, released through Reprise Records, became a breakout success and eventually shipped over 10 million copies in the U.S. Green Day is credited alongside fellow California punk bands NOFX, Sublime, Bad Religion, the Offspring, Rancid, and Jawbreaker with popularizing mainstream interest in punk rock in the U.S.
PHOTO CREDIT: Talia Herman/The Guardian
Though the albums Insomniac (1995), Nimrod (1997), and Warning (2000) did not match the success of Dookie, they were still successful with the former two reaching double platinum status while the latter achieved gold. Green Day's seventh album, a rock opera called American Idiot (2004), found popularity with a younger generation, selling six million copies in the U.S. Their next album, 21st Century Breakdown, was released in 2009 and achieved the band's best chart performance. It was followed by a trilogy of albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!, released in September, November, and December 2012, respectively. The trilogy did not perform as well as expected commercially in comparison to their previous albums largely due to lack of promotion and Armstrong entering rehab. Their twelfth studio album, Revolution Radio, was released in October 2016 and became their third to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The band's thirteenth studio album, Father of All Motherfuckers, was released on February 7, 2020”.
Here are my suggestions of the band’s essential albums; one that is underrated and warrants some new light. I also list their current album and suggest a book that is worth exploring. If you need some guidance regarding Green Day, then I hope my tips…
Release Date: 1st February, 1994
Label: Reprise
Producers: Rob Cavallo/Green Day
Standout Tracks: Longview/Welcome to Paradise/When I Come Around
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/green-day/dookie-cb1abe0a-5341-4f91-9399-bc4028d57fa1
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4uG8q3GPuWHQlRbswMIRS6?si=MOGk_yYkSqGDuTD90_ir_Q
Review:
“Green Day couldn't have had a blockbuster without Nirvana, but Dookie wound up being nearly as revolutionary as Nevermind, sending a wave of imitators up the charts and setting the tone for the mainstream rock of the mid-'90s. Like Nevermind, this was accidental success, the sound of a promising underground group suddenly hitting its stride just as they got their first professional, big-budget, big-label production. Really, that's where the similarities end, since if Nirvana were indebted to the weirdness of indie rock, Green Day were straight-ahead punk revivalists through and through. They were products of the underground pop scene kept alive by such protagonists as All, yet what they really loved was the original punk, particularly such British punkers as the Jam and Buzzcocks. On their first couple records, they showed promise, but with Dookie, they delivered a record that found Billie Joe Armstrong bursting into full flower as a songwriter, spitting out melodic ravers that could have comfortably sat alongside Singles Going Steady, but infused with an ironic self-loathing popularized by Nirvana, whose clean sound on Nevermind is also emulated here. Where Nirvana had weight, Green Day are deliberately adolescent here, treating nearly everything as joke and having as much fun as snotty punkers should. They demonstrate a bit of depth with "When I Come Around," but that just varies the pace slightly, since the key to this is their flippant, infectious attitude -- something they maintain throughout the record, making Dookie a stellar piece of modern punk that many tried to emulate but nobody bettered” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Basket Case
Nimrod
Release Date: 14th October, 1997
Label: Reprise
Producers: Rob Cavallo/Green Day
Standout Tracks: Nice Guys Finish Last/Hitchin’ a Ride/Walking Alone
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/green-day/nimrod
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3x2uer6Xh0d5rF8toWpRDA?si=B80pMCFKQjeLTVD_yHQ0IQ
Review:
“And those aren’t even the hits – the booze-hound’s lament of Hitchin’ A Ride, Nice Guys Finish Last’s cynical punk rush, the gooey, ’50s-tinged love ballad that is Redundant, all songs that sum up and show off each of Green Day’s various sides at their very strongest. Then there’s the ridiculous parp-fest of King For A Day, a song that’s become a 15-minute chunk of their live show, involving a brass section dressed as fruit, because fruit. You almost forget that the acoustic Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) – a song used as the reflective soundtrack to everything from England getting knocked out of the 1998 World Cup, to newsreels of Princess Diana after her death – is on there, tucked away one track from the end.
Most of all, Nimrod is Green Day’s best album because of where it found them. It’s still got the scrappy, street-smart songwriting and caustic bar philosopher’s songwriting of Dookie, but there’s also the overpowering confidence that would – eventually – give the world something as ambitious as American Idiot” - Kerrang!
Choice Cut: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
Warning
Release Date: 3rd October, 2000
Label: Reprise
Producers: Green Day/Rob Cavallo (exec.)
Standout Tracks: Waiting/Minority/Macy’s Day Parade
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=68821&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3ifIxGNsG1XmLdoanRRIWB?si=ro49EmOKR9e81Q4wQOGDEg
Review:
“By 2000, Green Day had long been spurned as unhip by the fourth-generation punks they popularized, and they didn't seem likely to replicate the MOR success of the fluke smash "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." Apparently, the success of that ballad freed the band from any classifications or stigmas, letting them feel like they could do anything they wanted on their fifth album, Warning. They responded by embracing their fondness for pop and making the best damn album they'd ever made. There's a sense of fearlessness on Warning, as if the band didn't care if the album wasn't punk enough, or whether it produced a cross-platform hit. There are no ballads here, actually, and while there are a number of punchy, infectious rockers, the tempo is never recklessly breakneck. Instead, the focus is squarely on the songs, with the instrumentation and arrangements serving their needs. It's easy to say that Green Day have matured with this album, since they've never produced a better, more tuneful set of songs, or tried so many studio tricks and clever arrangements. However, that has the wrong connotation, since "mature" would indicate that Warning is a studious, carefully assembled album that's easier to admire than to love. That's not the case at all. This is gleeful, unabashed fun, even when Billie Joe Armstrong is getting a little cranky in his lyrics. It's fun to hear Green Day adopt a Beatlesque harmonica on "Hold On" or try out Kinks-ian music hall on "Misery," while still knocking out punk-pop gems and displaying melodic ingenuity and imaginative arrangements. Warning may not be an innovative record per se, but it's tremendously satisfying; it finds the band at a peak of songcraft and performance, doing it all without a trace of self-consciousness. It's the first great pure pop album of the new millennium” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Warning
American Idiot
Release Date: 21st September, 2004
Label: Reprise
Producers: Rob Cavallo/Green Day
Standout Tracks: Jesus of Suburbia; Give Me Novacaine/She’s a Rebel/Wake Me Up When September Ends
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=33161&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5Qhn2FpGWmTjCuntF09j7g?si=2vxZ8iupSJiGHQ6zcuem5g
Review:
“"Nobody cares," Armstrong screams shrilly in "Homecoming", one of the album's two extended set pieces, and the line gets at American Idiot's greatest feat, besides its revitalization of Green Day's songwriting. Rather than preach, it digs out the fuse buried under mountains of 7-Eleven styrofoam trash, the cultural livewire that's grown cold in the shadow of strip-mall economics. Armstrong's characters are just misunderstood and disaffected individuals, told to get lost by a nation of fair and balanced sitcom watchers. They're apathetic suburbanite kids, grown up to find that life in the longview sucks.
"Jesus of Suburbia" and the accompanying epic "Homecoming" are American Idiot's summarizing ideological and musical statements. Bookends, they respectively establish and bitterly conclude the record's storyline. Musically, they roll rapid-fire through vignettes of enormous drum fill rock, plaintive piano, Johnny Rotten impressions, and surprisingly strong harmonies. "Suburbia" references the melodies of "All the Young Dudes" and "Ring of Fire"; "Homecoming" surveys both the Ramones and the Police's "Born in the 50s"; and both songs owe their form and pacing to The Who. The album does drag on occasion-- the labored pacing of "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a little too much, the price of ambition. But then there's "She's a Rebel", a simplistically perfect anthem of the sort the band's vapid followers (or their handlers) would likely muck up with string sections.
For all its grandiosity, American Idiot keeps its mood and method deliberately, tenaciously, and angrily on point. Music in 2004 is full of well-meaning but pan-flashing sloganeers whose tirades against the government-- whether right or wrong-- are ultimately flat, with an overarching sense that what they're saying comes packaged with a spoil date of November '04. Though they do fling their share of surface insults, Green Day frequently look deeper here, not just railing against the political climate, but also striving to show how that climate has negatively impacted American culture. Ultimately, American Idiot screams at us to do something, anything-- a wake-up call from those were once shared our apathy” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: American Idiot
The Underrated Gem
Insomniac
Release Date: 10th October, 1995
Label: Reprise
Producers: Rob Cavallo/Green Day
Standout Tracks: Stuck with Me/Geek Stink Breath/Walking Contradiction
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=68787&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7d3nOmFvL51roNElAdpi9d?si=wZzWI3JBRLGnvtCO3tlBrA
Review:
“After Dookie, Green Day were faced with a variety of options. Poised to take over the world if only they re-wrote another alterna-anthem like “Basket Case,” the band took a step back and looked through their back catalog. In order to fill the stadiums they were about to play with a full sound, the band bumped up their guitars, streamlined their songs and looked back to stadium rocking power-pop/hard-rock acts like Cheap Trick. Each song on Insomniac is catchy in its own right, the harmonies are near surgical in their precision and the band tightened their playing immensely. If Dookie was the band’s emotional and intellectual breakthrough, Insomniac is their big rock record, and never is it more apparent than in opener “Armatage Shanks” or the extended, speed-riffing, grandiose intro of “Panic Song.” Once again, however, it’s the band’s branching out into a more general ’90s alternative blend of punk, hard rock and metal that gain the most attention. “Geek Stink Breath” is a gritty tribute to the band’s meager past, and “Brain Stew” is their antisocial, self-loathing, tongue-in-cheek simple rocker, with its stop-time riffage. While the band would have been hard-pressed to top Dookie, the album coalesces with the perfect pop chorus of “Walking Contradiction,” cementing the album permanently in the history of rock ’n’roll” – Alternative Press
Choice Cut: Brain Stew/Jaded
The Latest Album
Release Date: 7th February, 2020
Label: Reprise
Producers: Butch Walker/Chris Dugan/Green Day
Standout Tracks: Fire, Ready, Aim/Oh Yeah!/Meet Me on the Roof
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Father-All-Green-Day/dp/B07XGMY4PT
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7ij8wQxCAexZiXZbMOHcxE?si=ylPmh6buTRq159vn8UUV-w
Review:
“Fitting this bright palette, Green Day revel in a decidedly lighthearted vision of teenage wasteland, piling on razor hooks, corn-syrup guitar crunch, and hand-clap drum bash, rarely stooping to inject these oft-blazing tunes with much in the way of bile or ballast. When they do channel all-American angst, the tone is winking and wistfully matter-of-fact, rendering adolescent rage as a fun, formal gesture. “Graffitia” riffs on Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and Summer of Love pop as it looks back longingly at the glory days of Bay Area punk; the album’s big anthem is knowingly titled “I Was a Teenage Teenager”; its catchiest tune is called “Sugar Youth,” and sugar-sharp it is, an absolute masterclass in Cali-core hooksmanship.
Things slow down for “Junkies on a High,” a torpid, bluesy grind that brings out the incipient fear and loathing that still lurks just below the surface of one of Green Day’s most fun albums. Father of All… is a bountiful act of recovered rock memory, an effortlessly affirming argument that the first mosh pit or car radio contact high you get when you’re 13 years old can be enough to sustain you long into life. It’s a deep, deep thing, and, in a sense, a defiant and subtly political statement, too: Even after the coup that installs Ivanka Trump as president for life, James Brown and the Buzzcocks will still be there for you” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Father of All…
The Green Day Book
Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day
Author: Marc Spitz
Publication Date: 2nd December, 2010
Publisher: Sphere
Synopsis:
“Attempting to track Green Day's career trajectory can be a very tedious, a very obvious task. You can touch upon the surprises, the fall-outs, the backlashes, and you'd still be treading well-worn ground. Maybe this is why Marc Spitz is due acknowledgement for not only profiling the band's long, arduous journey through the mainstream and up from their Bay Area upbringing in some refreshing views and detailed accounts -- but for doing this all within 200 pages, roughly.
Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Time, and Music of Green Day talks to an awful lot of people not named Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool, and Billie Joe Armstrong -- and as the book progresses you realize this is perfect. Who better to tell the tales than the characters that surrounded them through everything? Everyone from Jello Biafra and Fat Mike (and Punknews.org's own illustrious editor Aubin!) to family members and ex-girlfriends are quoted, giving their takes on the Bay Area punk scene or Billie Joe's star power or what have you. Plenty material here provides thorough insight into the members' personal upbringings, including interesting tidbits like Billie Joe's singing lessons in his early childhood and even an eventual 7" the pre-pubescent frontman put out on his teacher's record label.
With the band's mainstream success providing plenty press already, the book focuses a nice portion of the story on their Lookout! days. A brief history of the band's first label is given but with enough detail to give a healthy scope on the situation of the time. Fair regards are made towards some of the band's first tours, as well as the hometown following they amassed after a number of shows and EPs -- a popularity that hit a stunning peak at Kerplunk!'s release, probably even greater than fans developed after the fact realize.
From there we're granted constant behind-the-scenes access to the band's record label dealings and studio recordings, with the struggle between the family life and the rock star life always looming over the pages, something Spitz pulls down occasionally to give the story its obligatory tension. We're taken all the way through American Idiot and that album acting as the catalyst for the band's second (or so) explosion of popularity. Even the lost album recorded between Warning: and American Idiot -- a supposed return to the band's roots -- is mentioned with some quotes from sources close to the band/recording; unfortunately the book gives no hint as to whether those recordings will ever see a public release” – Punknews.org
Order: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobody-Likes-You-Inside-Turbulent/dp/0751538655