Green Day have released 11 albums (13 if you count ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! as individual releases), and now album number 12 (or 14) has snuck out to little fanfare (or I just missed the fanfare, but it’s here now).
All those albums were pretty good in their own way – some very good, others a bit “must try harder”. But only one of them was American Idiot – a piece of work that looms large in their history, and deservedly so. It’s 20 years old this year, and still sounds great.
Their last album – Father of All Motherf**kers – was a strong effort (unfortunately, not very “sticky” and I can’t recall the last time I played it.
Not heard the new one yet, but the first release single – The American Dream Is Killing Me – is not sounding too bad.
(note: it does sound like Green Day, so don’t go searching for any new soundscapes or experimentation)
Only a full listen to the album when it arrives will prove if it has more staying power than a re-listen when assembling the End Of Year lists.
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In 1994, before Dookie blew up, I had tickets to see Green Day at The Garage in Glasgow. It holds 700 tops. Good venue, I’ve seen lots of gigs there – Dick Dale, Fountains of Wayne, DTK/MC5, the New York Dolls!.
They were on tour in mainland Europe and Dookie was flying off the shelves, on its way to sell 10 million copies. But they were booked in to this hard graft tour, playing 500 capacity venues 6 nights a week and driving everywhere. They had been on the road, working up from tiny gigs, for about 6 years. They had all had enough of it all, were falling out with each other, and had the chance to take stock. They were also exhausted and looking at the remaining 20 gigs in 23 days, 600 miles a day drive, with no love. So they did a very wise thing, learning the lessons from a step that some of their forebears like The Clash never took. They asked their managers what it would cost to pull the tour, and decided that was money worth spending (from the millions that were starting to roll in). They flew home on different flights and took a month away from each other. Then they met back up at their rehearsal rooms and got back in the saddle.
There are many music biographies where the band members look back ruefully and say “well, maybe if we had taken a couple of months off, the band wouldn’t have split” – Thin Lizzy, The Clash, and there was a similar mindset in Zoe Howe’s excellent Lee Brilleaux biography.
I am amused that the MAGA crowd are only now realising that Green Day are not on the same side as them. Like that Mitchell & Webb sketch, yes, you are the baddies
Spanish bad man – that is a brilliant anecdote.
Apparently their upcoming US tour will see them play American Idiot and Dookie in full
That Green Day version of Punk – compressed guitars, shouty vocals – that was played by bands like them and The Offspring has been very influential – its everywhere. My five year old likes Paw Patrol, and the Paw Patrol theme – compressed guitars, shouting vocals (“Chase! Marshall!”) sounds like Green Day. It’s ridiculous.