Green Day- From Dookie to American Idiot

[HBK-79]

We all saw U2 and Green Day unite as one for the reopening of the Superdome a few years ago. So I was wondering if loyal U2 fans here are also Green Day fans.

I ask this because it's a well-known fact that the whole pop-punk genre is regarded as shite to all discerning music listeners in their adult years. In this particular genre, you have the likes of Blink-182, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Simple Plan. Green Day are also part of this group.

Now while all these pop-punk outfits have faded into obscurity, Green Day made a comeback in 2004 with American Idiot. In 2005, American Idiot sold more than How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and X&Y. With that, Green Day became popular like never before. All of this is kind of odd to me, since (like I said) everyone with good taste in music thinks the pop-punk genre sucks.

So what do you guys think of American Idiot? Do you think Green Day are deserving of such success and popularity? Why is Green Day more respected than all the other pop-punk acts out there? How is it that Green Day is still going strong while Sum 41, Good Charlotte, etc. have lost momentum?

Can anyone better elucidate Green Day’s overall appeal to the masses?

I like Green Day and all- but AI was a tad overrated.

 

[LemonMelon]

I don't care for most punk-rock, The Clash aside, so their early work doesn't do much for me. American Idiot was very impressive. It's a shame there's been such a backlash.

 

[BVS]

I don't really care for Green Day, although I admit to liking some songs, but never enough to buy an album...

But Green Day went from the punk kids making masturbation and fart jokes to making a theme album about the political climate of America, some bands we get to see evolve but very few this much... for that they get props.

Plus they wrote THE song that showed up(and probably will for a long time to come) in every birthday, wedding, anniversary slide show ever made since 1997: 'Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)'

 

[corianderstem]

One of my college friends had their first couple of CDs, and I remember playing them a lot on our teeny-tiny radio station. I got tired of all the Dookie songs and what came next, and ignored American Idiot despite the great reviews it got.

Then an ex-boyfriend got a concert DVD of theirs through Netflix, and it knocked my socks off. I picked up American Idiot post haste.

The end.

 

[Se7en]

But Green Day went from the punk kids making masturbation and fart jokes

i quite prefer the masturbation and fart jokes. it's all downhill from dookie.

in addition to me just not digging the music, american idiot came off as far too contrived.

 

[ShipOfFools]

I've always tried to stay away from this band. I dunno, I've just never been really impressed with them. But I haven't heard American Idiot, so I can't really talk.

 

[BoMac]

I don't really care for their earlier work, it's fairly disposable material, in my opinion. But American Idiot was an excellent body of work, and I still listen to it in its entirety when the mood strikes.

 

[BoMac]

Plus they wrote THE song that showed up(and probably will for a long time to come) in every birthday, wedding, anniversary slide show ever made since 1997: 'Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)'

Not sure if you're being sarcastic here, but I just took a look at the lyrics. Not exactly wedding or anniversary material, if you ask me. I always took the song to be bittersweet ( I mean, Good Riddance is in the song title), but then it's also open to interpretation, of course.

It's almost as baffling to me as when people play One at weddings.

 

[The Sad Punk]

But Green Day went from the punk kids making masturbation and fart jokes to making a theme album about the political climate of America, some bands we get to see evolve but very few this much... for that they get props.

I think the reason for this is because most bands don't start at such a devolved state as to write songs about fart jokes and masturbation.

 

[Aardvark747]

I don't really care for their earlier work, it's fairly disposable material, in my opinion. But American Idiot was an excellent body of work, and I still listen to it in its entirety when the mood strikes.

This

 

[VintagePunk]

i quite prefer the masturbation and fart jokes. it's all downhill from dookie.

in addition to me just not digging the music, american idiot came off as far too contrived.

This.





I prefer their earlier material to AI. Not that I hate AI or anything, it just kind of leaves me...cold. Good on them for achieving musical growth though, and having staying power in the industry. Definitely interested in seeing what they do next. With the Foxboro Hot Tubs project out of the way, I think they're due to have new Green Day material out later this year.

I wouldn't even mention them in the same breath as Good Charlotte, Simple Plan and Sum 41. They're in a completely different class.

 

[intedomine]

IBut Green Day went from the punk kids making masturbation and fart jokes to making a theme album about the political climate of America, some bands we get to see evolve but very few this much... for that they get props.

)'

Blink 182 did songs about masturbation and fart jokes ten times better than Green Day.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

it would be ironic that u2 fans hated green day because as much as people like to consider coldplay and radiohead as "the new u2z omgz!!!" in reality no other modern band has followed a path as similar to u2's path as green day has.

honestly... u2 started as a post-punk band with not really complex songs about teenage angst and slowly became more political, mature and complex in their song writing as the years went on, enabling them to distance themselves from the rest of the post-punk bands of the early 80s and not only survive but flourish.

replace "u2" with "green day," "post-punk" with "pop-punk" and "80s" with "90s" and the exact same description would still hold true, with Nimrod playing the Joshua Tree role, Warning playing the Rattle and Hum "good record but need to go away and dream it all up again" role, leading us into the departure and reinvention with American Idiot.

the only question is wether or not green day will be able to maintain their success after the brilliance of American Idiot the way U2 did after Achtung Baby.

 

[MMP]

Most Green Day albums are really good and they happen to be the best band in their genre. Although I've always saw them a million steps above those bands you cited. (Simple Plan and Good Charlote are more in the emo genre, and Blink 182 is just shitte imo.)
Green Day has maintened their sucess cause they produce mostly good music. Different from bands that usually have two or three hits or are hailed by the press with their first albums and then never manage to produce decent or commercially sucesseful things again and then fade away, Green Day keeps quality in each album. Not everytime they get it right, but they try. You can see that they have interest in the music they're doing: when Dookie came out and sold like water, instead of releasing a new album in the same vein, they tried a darker approach with Insomniac. Or their experimentation releasing albums as other bands.
But the best poof of their quality is the fact that their truly masterpiece (No album of theirs came even close or deserved to be hailed as such, imo. Despite being very good albums.) only came out now, when they already have a "career" and not with their first-second-third album. American Idiot IS a masterpiece imo. A album that comes close to perfection, no matter what the genre is.

Green Day is not one of the greatest bands ever, it doesn't even comes close. But they deserve all the respect and they, one day, might even be up for that title. If they kept the same musical quality and innovation of American Idiot, they can.

 

[BVS]

Not sure if you're being sarcastic here, but I just took a look at the lyrics. Not exactly wedding or anniversary material, if you ask me. I always took the song to be bittersweet ( I mean, Good Riddance is in the song title), but then it's also open to interpretation, of course.

It's almost as baffling to me as when people play One at weddings.

I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm just saying almost every slideshow I've seen made that's meant to look back has this song somewhere in it...

 

[phanan]

American Idiot was a fantastic album.