So why am I doing it, well partially boredom, and partial because I am presently playing through Saviors, which is a little better than Father of All MotherFers, but not quiet American Idiot and nothing ever comes close to Dookie, so this is my was of killing time and listening to some old school Green Day and enjoying using my brain to write something I hope someone will enjoy. So shall we start at the beginning then?
There is a massive Wikki on Green Day.
1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hour. "Wiki says 90 Media Player says 91."
I'd like to say this is the definitive Green Day sound but it isn't not by a log shot they had been working as a band for 3 years before this debut album appears and yet they still don't really have their sound yet. Did they ever though?
The album while still a corker of a debut you can hear that they still want to find themselves. Which as I stated seems odd for a group that's been around 3 years already. While songs adapt and later as we go along giving different speeds and song structure it comes across as a solid room to improve and room to grow album.
A varying cavalcade of 180 second tracks, nothing much over that in that generic punk style.
I didn't want to write that last line but this is how it feels now in 2024.
A varying cavalcade of 180 second tracks, nothing much over that in that generic punk style.
I didn't want to write that last line but this is how it feels now in 2024.
This album of course is more of a hybrid of the early years and EPs collected together.
Though there is very little within the song make up and performances to allow the casual listener to even notice, if you are lucky enough to have the deluxe edition there is another EP attached to this epic.
Though there is very little within the song make up and performances to allow the casual listener to even notice, if you are lucky enough to have the deluxe edition there is another EP attached to this epic.
Shall we move on?
Kerplunk! "1991"
Now we see Green Day starting to become Green Day.
Adding Tres Cool to drums and we start to hear and feel that Green Day sound.
Also it is nice to be able to play an album and not hear autotune.
While Kerplunk! has all manner of amazing tracks it still just as 39/smooth ended up with an EP bolted to the back of it making up the last 4 tracks. Though when you have tracks as catchy as welcome to paradise and Dominate Love Slave which is yeah so many questions about this song. Yet it shows the ability for Green Day to just do something totally off the wall. Yet again though nearly every song on the album trying to stay under three minutes and even the longest track only reaching 3:30.
As we know though this isn't going to last.
Kerplunk! Is another solid outing by Green Day, if you are an American Idiot generation and haven't looked at the back catalogue you really should.
Everyone ready for Dookie?
This and Insomniac got me through college.
This and Insomniac got me through college.
Dookie "1994"
Those drums start and you know this is a Green Day album. As the album moves long we come to something familiar but a little different and that is a rerecording of Welcome to Paradise, after playing through Kerplunk! Straight into Dookie you can hear the differences in sound quality and recording and while it is the same song it is also different. This shows that sometimes you just have to rework things a little to make a bigger noise. That sounds wrong! Though I actually do not know why they did this but they did and I like both versions. I also feel it might not be the only time Green Day do this. Of course this album also holds Basketcase, Green Day's biggest song until American Idiot and we will get to that. Dookie is also the first time I discovered Hidden Tracks! Which are more common now a days. But for me back then this was a new thing. Though since my house flooded and I had to replace my copy Dookie has gained a track and it ends with All By Myself instead of F.O.D.
Quick we have to capitalize on the success of Dookie
Insomniac "1995"
Well it's Green Day. Drop the Bass a couple of levels and go heavy and hard. The only song going over 3 minutes on here is Brain Stew. Every track is high energy fast playing tunes with bleak and slightly downer lyrics. I do wonder if this was a forced album to try and keep the train rolling after Dookie. Some bands do manage to spin new albums year on year but the quality does sometimes suffer, now personally I love Brain Stew. But there is not a lot else on this album that makes me go this is a banger. Not even that awesome Bass riff on Stuart and the Avenue.
I often say that since Green Day stopped being angry they lost their way, but replaying through all these albums I don't think Green Day were ever angry.
Nimrod "1997"
Ah Nimrod, I actually love this album. It is one of those albums where every song is unique and original, the creation of the whole thing just gives a new side to Green Day. According to the Wiki this is one of the worst selling albums, yet it is the album with Nice Guys Finish Last, Hitching a Ride, Redundant, Platypus, Uptight, Walking Alone, and Good Riddance (Time of your life) on it and if they played I bet you'd be singing along with them.
Get Nimrod. If you don't have it already.
I'm just going to erm yeah Americana is calling me erm....
Warning "2000" (UK special edition)
Warnin' live without warnin'. The century turned to 21 and we got Warning. Which is in my eyes an excellent album, you can hear Green Day starting to change their sound a little yet they aren't. It is an interesting twist on the dynamic. More structure to songs and a very tiny style change but nothing t make them not still be recognisable as Green Day. Also this is the first album with a song going over the 4 minute mark with Macy Day's Parade.
Here is a musical interlude.
Here comes prog-punk. Amazingly this album only has 3 songs that are under 3 minutes. Gone are the quick fast paced bellters we had been getting for the last decade and we had this progressive punk opera. A mind shattering work of originality and a whole new showing of creativity from Green Day. How they came to this I don't know the Wiki says it was from them falling out and failing to get along what created this piece of musical genius but as I do not know I can't comment on this at all. I do not know any member of Green Day I am just a fan and I shall not comment on it. Though American Idiot stands out as a piece of Punk mastery. While it has its moments of politics and history within it this is an album that does not age like so many that are to the point of the time. This one is timeless.
And we should quit with the September Ends shit.
21st Century Breakdown "2009"
Song of the Century is 57 seconds long. Go to spotify, youtube, your MP3 collection. Go on go play it then come back. I'll wait.
That is the opening song for the album... Yeah I can not find the words to carry myself through the rest of the album. What's worse is I know what is coming and how they went from American Idiot and 21st Century to what was coming I do not know!
Okay I have composed myself and we can carry on with 21st Century Breakdown, it carries on that new style of sound and performance from American Idiot, though we lose the long prog-punk songs and go back to the more 3 minute give or take track type. Though the speed has not returned for these shorter songs and it becomes more of a rock band than a punk band. While keeping the politics and brutality of fighting the system within it lyrically.
Okay okay okay I'll do Uno, Dos, Tre. But as One Album.
Uno, Dos, Tres, "2012"
Nope can't do it they were terrible vanity project in an attempt to keep each band member happy and urgh do I have too. It is just early Green Day cleaned up I say cleaned up what I mean is the sound is cleaner it is snappier and yeah it is very plain. Yes it is Green Day but that is it, there really is nothing for me to go OH WOW about here nothing original nothing at all. I am 7 tracks in to the play through and I am trying not to fall to sleep. I actually avoided buying them back in 2012 I did get round to picking them up around 2018 when I started replacing the damaged albums from the flood. Trouble Maker is presently playing and it just reminds me of Electric Six. Hippy Hippy Shake! I mean F**K Time. BLURGH, I have been blaming Revolution Radio on songs sounding like songs from Green Day and I might have been wrong! I do generally play my entire music collection on shuffle and rarely double check what is actually playing, so this this is interesting to me as I might have gotten my albums mixed up when listening to them on shuffle. But Uno Dos Tres so far has been Torture. I got to move on.
So it was mentioned in the last album so we shall get on it.
Revolution Radio "2016"
Slow start with somewhere now. I feel this is where I started saying Green Day not being angry is the issue. It is odd how over the years Green Day have slowed down, Bang bang which is trying to sound fast does not sound that fast. Also why does this sound so familiar? Is it a case of Green Day have been going that long the tracks are now starting to just sound like older stuff they have forgotten then have written? It is a question I am asking myself, mainly because i have spent most of the day playing Green Day through in Album order and when you have 14 studio albums that is a lot of music to go through.
Slow start with somewhere now. I feel this is where I started saying Green Day not being angry is the issue. It is odd how over the years Green Day have slowed down, Bang bang which is trying to sound fast does not sound that fast. Also why does this sound so familiar? Is it a case of Green Day have been going that long the tracks are now starting to just sound like older stuff they have forgotten then have written? It is a question I am asking myself, mainly because i have spent most of the day playing Green Day through in Album order and when you have 14 studio albums that is a lot of music to go through.
It does feel like a paint by numbers Green Day Album where is the anger where is the rage, I can hear the politics and despair in the lyrics but it just isn't punching anywhere near its weight class.
Moving into the moderner age.. blurgh..
Father of All MotherFu***** "2020"
Yeah I played this through when it came out and I didn't like it.
Yeah I played this through when it came out and I didn't like it.
My mood hasn't changed, it does feel like they are trying to fit in to the modern world, the distortion on the mic and the way the song structure is built feels about 10 years too late for what it was. An it felt late when it arrived with everyone else. Every track is a variation of a theme every beat is so damn close to the previous it just sounds like one long song. This is not Green Day, out of all the albums until now even in the experimental it was still Green Day this this could be kaizer chiefs, this could be franz ferdinand. It's generic pop music from one of the largest punk bands of the 90's and 00's and I want to cry because if I don't I am going to be swinging my hips like an ageing dad at a wedding. Urgh next album and the last one please come on 2024.
Saviors "2024"
The American Dream is Killing Me! WOO Green Day Sound like Green Day once more!
Look Ma No Brains. It is actually fast! They can still play a rapid fire 120 second song!
Do we think the rest of the album can hold this slightly angry and rapid pace? Green day are aging as are the rest of us. It's 30 years since Dookie and 20 years since American Idiot. They can't keep clinging to these amazing albums and need to advance and so far Saviors appears to be an album that is moving in hat direction. Once more though still clean sound but that is also an advancement in recording and studios not just the fact they have become so much better with their instruments.
Though like earlier albums you can still find rifts they have "borrowed" from older songs. Which has become a bit of a Green Day trait since the Uno Dos Tres days. Which isn't that long ago.
Though like earlier albums you can still find rifts they have "borrowed" from older songs. Which has become a bit of a Green Day trait since the Uno Dos Tres days. Which isn't that long ago.
So far though Saviors is heading in the right direction after several years of losing their way.
So Green Day a brief review here is it, and while I have gone over the albums I have avoided the live and best of albums. An yeah we are all getting older but it is always nice to look back and with my old man head not that teenage anxiety and anger that I held back in the 90's.
They are Green Day, they are one of the bands that shaped my world and make me who I am. Obviously in that list is also the Offspring, Guns and Roses, Terrorvision, Bush and a whole host of other bands and groups and maybe I will start going back over them all one more.
Before I vanish to work on the next thing, I am going to drop this demo for Basket Case.....
And I will leave you wondering if this had been released would Green Day have been as big?
But then there is a lot to go through.
