The Cavern
Rock & Words
GREEN DAY
“Is it the cop, or am I the one that’s really dangerous?
Sanitation, expiration date, question everything.
Or shut up and be a victim of authority”
“D”
Main Decade: 90’s
Main Eras:
Alternative II: The Big Bang (1990-1999)
Key Members:
Billie Joe Armstrong – Guitar and Vocals
Mike Dirnt – Bass and Backing Vocals
Tré Cool – Drums
Key Songs:
Basket Case, Wake me Up When September Ends, When I Come Around, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Good Riddance, Warning, In the End, Holiday, Longview, She, American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Welcome to Paradise, 21 Guns, Brain Stew, Minority
The first thing to mention about Green Day is that they are a very difficult band to categorize. That is to say, they undoubtedly have a punk foundation. But they are not a punk band in the strictest sense of the word. Their foundation lies in that genre: minimalist, or rather, simplistic music, with songs in three or four chords, no solos, no frills. Pure, simple, powerful, melodic rock... Melodic? Yes, that's what sets them apart from most punk bands. It's incredible how many tricks this trio can pull off without much fanfare, simply with Billie Joe's creative genius and an effective command of their instruments. They have a charming pop sensibility, full of hooks, that keeps the songs from becoming too repetitive. It's not that they can't be dark when they want to be, but generally their songs radiate not only energy but also a certain optimism that hooks you, even if the lyrics aren't always radiant. That, and the fact that the punk movement itself ended in the '80s. Green Day was at the forefront of the '90s alternative wave with Dookie, which was a smash hit when grunge and alternative were the clear dominant genres. Then they disappeared for a while, at least from the mainstream and the spotlight, and returned with a vengeance 10 years later, when everyone had written them off, amidst the indie wave, to impact a new generation just as much, if not more, with American Idiot. Despite the different eras and the variety of their influences, I think the genre they fit best into is still punk, or well, post-punk, but I don't have that label. Because of the mix they use, Green Day is truly a unique band, one that spawned a ton of cheap imitations that would form the happy punk movement of the late 90s. But hey, they're not to blame for these imitators, are they?
The band emerged in 1987. Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt, then 15 years old, decided to form a band called Sweet Children (a name that would suit Billy Joe even now; it doesn't age at all!). Billy Joe started on guitar, Mike on bass, and several drummers rotated in and out until John Kiffner, known as "Al Sobrante," became the permanent member. The trio then began playing on the California circuit, with a clear punk influence.
In 1988, Larry Livermore, owner of the independent label Lookout! Records, saw them and immediately contacted them to sign them. They soon recorded the EP 1,000 Hours, but just before its release, they realized there was another California band called Sweet Baby. To completely avoid any confusion or legal issues, they changed their name to Green Day, a reference to marijuana.
Green Day's debut album was released in the early 90s, featuring a rawer sound and the band still searching for its identity. The album is very raw, reflecting their inexperience. At this point, Green Day didn't sound particularly different from the countless punk bands of the time. That year, they released a couple of EPs, and later Lookout! released a compilation featuring their twenty-only album and tracks from the EPs. Towards the end of the year, Al Sobrante left the band to return to the studio, believing that music would never provide him with a living. Tré Cool then joined temporarily to fill in for other bands, as he was already playing with another group. He quickly became friends with Billy and Mike, so he decided to leave the other band and become Green Day's permanent drummer. This lineup remains to this day.
In mid-1991, they began recording their second album, Kerplunk, their first with Tré Cool on drums. There are only slight improvements noticeable, but they're still far from their best, and they even attempt a raw cover of "My Generation." Among the improvements is "Welcome To Paradise," a complex track by punk standards, with a great instrumental performance (especially from Mike), which made Kerplunk a relative hit for an underground label. In fact, they had exceeded the capacity of the modest label. With its sales success, a bunch of big labels started chasing the young band, and they would end up signing with Reprise. They chose the label not so much for the financial offer, but because they had the opportunity to work with producer Rob Cavallo, whom they said "was the only person who could get the sound we wanted."
So they went into the studio at the end of '93 with Cavallo as their mentor and recorded Dookie. The change in direction is obvious, but above all, there's a greater maturity in their songwriting. It's a much more melodic album, full of hooks and with the band's style already clearly defined. With "Basket Case," "When I Come Around," and "Longview" as its spearheads, Dookie was one of those once-in-a-lifetime hits. Dookie rose like a rocket, resurrecting a genre that was considered dead, and its greatest achievement was doing so amidst that crossroads where Grunge, Brit Rock, and Alternative were vying for dominance on equal footing. In fact, given the unusual nature of Green Day's sound, they ended up being categorized as Alternative, at least in terms of nominations and awards. Soon, Green Day was on MTV morning, noon, and night, playing massive concerts, headlining Lollapalooza, Woodstock '94… and a year later, they would win the Grammy for Best Alternative Album.
In 1995, with Dookie still shaking up the music world, they went back into the studio to record what would become Insomniac. The album received even more critical acclaim, but its sales fell far short of Dookie's. It was a darker album, but tracks like "Brain Stew" kept the trio relevant on MTV and commercial radio, in addition to earning them some nominations and awards.
The band took a break in 1996, in fact, canceling the European leg of their tour due to exhaustion. In '97, they returned to the studio to record Nimrod, which moved further away from punk and leaned more towards melodic pop. Many fans were disappointed and felt betrayed, but it did produce gems like "Good Riddance." However, they didn't get much airplay on TV or radio, and the spotlight began to shift to other bands. Around this time, happy punk bands like Blink-182 and Sum 41 also began to emerge, contributing to the commercialization of the end of the millennium. In 2000, Green Day released Warning, following this more melodic trend. Despite being a good album and receiving positive reviews, it confirmed the band's declining commercial performance, becoming their lowest-selling album since signing with Reprise Records. In 2002, they toured with Blink-182, alternating the headlining role. Many interpreted this as meaning Green Day was no longer capable of putting together a tour on their own and that they were finished. The truth is, they weren't going through a good period, even though musically they were still performing well. Rumors circulated that the band would break up, or that they had already broken up. But honestly, at that time, for those of us who weren't die-hard fans, it was as if they had vanished off the face of the earth. That's how ungrateful the media can be. Around this time, they began performing underground under the name Foxboro Hub Tubs.
However, Green Day went into the studio in the summer of 2003 and began recording an album tentatively titled Cigarettes and Valentines. In an exceptional act of self-criticism, with the album almost finished, they realized it was more of the same and that they weren't happy with the recording. So they scrapped the material (it was actually stolen, but they decided not to re-record it), reinvented themselves, and came out with another masterpiece, perhaps even better than Dookie. American Idiot, a rock opera that follows the adventures of the character Jesus of Suburbia, was released in September 2004, days before Bush's re-election, to whom many interpreted it as dedicated. And Green Day smashed it again 10 years later, reaching #1 almost everywhere, selling 6 million copies in the digital age, and racking up nominations and awards galore. With American Idiot, Green Day not only silenced those who considered them finished, but they returned stronger than ever, this time as one of the most mature bands in an era when rock was in crisis, perhaps dominated by indie rock. They even put on a Broadway musical!
They then released 21st Century Breakdown, which is still a good album, but we can agree that it was already difficult to reach the previous peaks, and the singles weren't as strong as those from America Idiot. Despite being good material, they ended up experiencing the same thing they had in the '90s and began to lose the spotlight again. In 2009, they released their own Rock Band album, which brought them more criticism from die-hard fans who accused them of selling out to the mainstream. By 2012, they had prepared a sort of trilogy called Uno, Dos, Tré, which was released on different dates. Tré had to be brought forward to December 2012 due to Armstrong's drug problems, which forced him into rehab. This album was the first to include Jason White as an official member of the group, since he had been the rhythm guitarist on tours since the late '90s, but the fact is that it's almost impossible to see Green Day outside of the trio format at this point. Furthermore, the project of a triple album is extremely risky, and what had to happen, happened: it didn't get much attention, and it had even fewer sales.
Green Day is a good band. They had their two moments of glory, which is far more than most bands can even dream of, impacting two distinct generations ten years apart. They have a good handful of great songs that remain fresh and relevant, and a couple of excellent albums. I'm not sure if both of them are perfect, but I'm certain that Dookie holds a special place in the hearts of all of us who were part of that mid-90s rock wave, and American Idiot was a breath of fresh air for rock at a time when it was drowning. They aren't virtuosos, but they are very creative, and they manage, within their limitations, to break free from the standard of three-note songs that represent punk and the constraints of being a trio (until 2012). The problem is that despite their ingenuity and the tremendous number of hooks they employ, they didn't truly revolutionize the genre. Despite their tricks and flexibility in experimenting with other genres and creating melodic songs, they remain somewhat trapped by the limitations of punk. They pushed it to its absolute limit, and we should be grateful for that. They managed to move it from its uniform, violent darkness of the late '70s and '80s to something more current, more melodic, and optimistic, while still retaining some of the rebellious and protest elements. Many would say they sold out, but I think they're a very intelligent band that knew how to exploit their resources to the limit. Unfortunately, that limit is very narrow. Not all their songs are good, or they don't escape what sounds to me like generic, three-note punk (and I should emphasize that I'm neither a fan nor an expert on punk). Several albums can be tiresome and repetitive for this reason, but in general, they all have at least one or two very good songs that have kept them present almost constantly, to a greater or lesser degree, for almost 20 years. Furthermore, it's worth noting that Billy Joe still seems like he's 20 years old. Not only because of the energy and charisma he shows on stage, but because he seems to have found the fountain of youth. He looks exactly the same as he did in 1990! And best of all, he sings exactly the same, with the same fresh voice. He reminds me of Marciano from Los Enanitos Verdes (it must be something related to the band's name, haha). And well, we can't really blame Green Day for the Blink, Sum, and all those cheap clones. I'm not a fan, but I like them. I even learned the bass lines from "Basket Case," "When I Come Around," and "Warning," and now that I've listened to their entire discography, I admit I like them more than I originally thought. I listen to Dookie and I'm transported back to the '90s. It smells like that era. They may not be heavyweights in the history of rock, but they've undoubtedly earned their place among the bands that deserve recognition for their creativity, effort, irreverence, and sense of humor, and for the doses of rebellion they infuse into their lyrics, even though many accuse them of selling out. That's why, as I said at the beginning, they're a band that's so difficult to categorize... but easy to love.
By Corvan
Feb/6/2013
