Posted February 17, 200718 yr http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200/drP600/P620/P62098YYKKY.jpg Green Day Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Out of all the post-Nirvana American alternative bands to break into the pop mainstream, Green Day was second only to Pearl Jam in terms of influence. At their core, Green Day was simply punk revivalists, recharging the energy of speedy, catchy three-chord punk-pop songs. Though their music wasn't particularly innovative, they brought the sound of late-'70s punk to a new, younger generation with Dookie, their 1994 major-label debut. Green Day wasn't always able to sustain their success — Dookie sold over eight million, while its follow-up, Insomniac, only sold a quarter of its predecessor — yet their influence was far-reaching because they opened the doors for a flood of American neo-punk, punk metal, and third wave ska revivalists. Green Day was part of the northern California underground punk scene. Childhood friends Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar, vocals) and Mike Dirnt (bass; born Mike Pritchard) formed their first band, Sweet Children, in Rodeo, CA, when they were 14 years old. By 1989, the group had added drummer Al Sobrante and changed its name to Green Day. That year, the band independently released its first EP, 1000 Hours, which was well received in the California hardcore punk scene. Soon, the group had signed a contract with the local independent label Lookout. Green Day's first album, 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hour, was released later that year. Shortly after its release, the band replaced Sobrante with Tre Cool (born Frank Edwin Wright III); Cool became the band's permanent drummer. Throughout the early '90s, Green Day continued to cultivate a cult following, which only gained strength with the release of their second album, 1992's Kerplunk. The underground success of Kerplunk led to a wave of interest from major record labels; the band eventually decided to sign with Reprise. Dookie, Green Day's major-label debut, was released in the spring of 1994. Thanks to MTV support for the initial single, "Longview," Dookie became a major hit. The album continued to gain momentum throughout the summer, with the second single, "Basket Case," spending five weeks on the top of the American modern rock charts. At the end of the summer, the band stole the show at Woodstock '94, which helped the sales of Dookie increase. By the time the fourth single, "When I Come Around," began its seven-week stay at number one on the modern rock charts in early 1995, Dookie had sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone; it would eventually top eight million in America, selling over ten million copies internationally. Dookie also won the 1994 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance. Green Day quickly followed Dookie with Insomniac in the fall of 1995; during the summer, they hit number one again on the modern rock charts with "J.A.R.," their contribution to the Angus soundtrack. Insomniac performed well initially, entering the U.S. charts at number two, and selling over two million copies by the spring of 1996, yet none of its singles — including the radio favorite "Brain Stew/Jaded" — were as popular as those from Dookie. In the spring of 1996, Green Day abruptly canceled a European tour, claiming exhaustion. Following the cancellation, the band spent the rest of the year resting and writing new material, issuing Nimrod in late 1997. Three years later, their long-awaited follow-up, a refreshingly poppy record titled Warning, was released. Another long wait preceded 2004's American Idiot, an aggressive rock opera that became a surprise success — a chart-topper around the world, a multi-platinum seller, and easily the best reviewed album of their career. Green Day reveled in the album's success, hitting numerous award shows and performing as part of Live 8 in July 2005. That fall brought Bullet in a Bible, which documented the trio's expansive Idiot live show.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg200/g278/g27853l6sv4.jpg 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (1991) 3 Stars Review by Ned Raggett When Green Day's first album appeared, anyone predicting that fame, MTV, top-selling albums, and more would be on the horizon in the near future would have been happily patted on the head and then sent to the insane asylum. It helps to remember that Nirvana's breakthrough was still a year away, for one thing, and, for another, 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hour isn't a truly great album in the first place. It's not bad, by any means, and quite arguably just about everything on it could be transposed with a slight aural tweak here and there to Dookie or Insomniac without anyone batting an eye. It's just little more than a fun punk-pop album with some entertaining metallic flash here and there, one of many such records that the late '80s and early '90s produced in the indie rock world. After a great start with "At the Library," it's quickly clear that the rest of the record is going to continue in the same vein. What's fun is realizing how much the band already had to work with, pursuing obvious love of three-chord forebears like the Dickies and the Ramones to energetic if not revelatory ends. Billie Joe Armstrong's balance of disaffection and nervous, goofy passion is well in place, while he's already showing his effective, no-frills approach to chewy feedback melody. Songs like "I Was There" and "Road to Acceptance," not to mention the implicitly weed-celebrating "Green Day" itself, are great calling cards for later breakouts on both levels. Mike Dirnt's no slouch himself, providing good backing vocals when needed for harmony, but oddly enough the most prominent performance throughout comes from original drummer John Kiftmeyer, who wouldn't last through to the next album. Call it a quirk of recording, but there it is.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc700/c716/c7162549red.jpg Kerplunk (Jan 17, 1992) 4 Stars Review by Ned Raggett Green Day's second full album was the perfect dry run for the band's later assault on the mainstream, containing both more variety and more flat-out smashes than previous releases had shown. With Tre Cool now firmly in place as the drummer, the lineup was at last settled, and it turned out Cool and Mike Dirnt were a perfect rhythm section, with the former showing a bit more flash and ability than John Kiftmeyer did. Together the two throw in a variety of guitarless breaks that would later help to define the band's sound for many — warm and never letting the beat go. As for Billie Joe Armstrong, his puppy-dog delivery and eternal switching between snotty humor and sudden sorrrow was better than ever, as were his instantly memorable riffs. The metal-strength chug that always informed the band's best work isn't absent either — check out Armstrong's opening riffing on "Christie Road." The whole thing starts with a note-perfect bang — "2000 Light Years Away" is the absolute highlight of the group's premajor-label days, with a great chorus and classic yearning lyrics. It got buried in the wave of Dookie's success a bit, but one other number didn't — "Welcome to Paradise," also a standout on that album, appears here in its original form. Rob Cavallo punched up the radio-friendly sound on the latter take, but even here it's a treat and a half — quick, rampaging, and once again with a great stop-start chorus to spare. Other straight-up pop winners include "One of My Lies" and "Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?." Elsewhere, Green Day slow down tempos, try acoustic numbers, and in one hilarious moment, pull off a ridiculous yet worthy country pisstake with the Cool-written "Dominated Love Slave." CD versions included the Sweet Children EP as a slightly surprising bonus.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd600/d664/d664131f386.jpg Dookie (Feb 1, 1994) 4.5 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine 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 comfortable 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.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd800/d836/d83688tuj0c.jpg Insomniac (Oct 10, 1995) 4 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Dookie gave Green Day success, but it was never really clear whether they wanted it in the first place. However, given the incessantly catchy songwriting of Billie Joe, the success made sense. Green Day were traditionalists without realizing it, learning all of their tricks through secondhand records and second-generation California punk bands. They didn't change their sound in the slightest after signing to a major label, which meant that they couldn't revert back to a harsher, earlier sound as a way to shed their audience for Dookie's follow-up, Insomniac. Instead, they kept their blueprint and made it a shade darker. Throughout Insomniac, there are vague references to the band's startling multi-platinum breakthrough, but the album is hardly a stark confessional on the level of Nirvana's In Utero. It's a collection of speedy, catchy songs in the spirit of the Buzzcocks, the Jam, the Clash, and the Undertones, but played with more minor chords and less melody and recorded with a bigger, hard rock-oriented production. While nothing on the album is as immediate as "Basket Case" or "Longview," the band has gained a powerful sonic punch, which goes straight for the gut but sacrifices the raw edge they so desperately want to keep and makes the record slightly tame. Billie Joe hasn't lost much of his talent for simple, tuneful hooks, but after a series of songs that all sound pretty much the same, it becomes clear that he needs to push himself a little bit more if Green Day ever want to be something more than a good punk-pop band. As it is, they remain a good punk-pop band, and Insomniac is a good punk-pop record, but nothing more.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd500/d544/d54424u1pq2.jpg Nimrod (Oct 14, 1997) 3.5 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Following the cool reception to Insomniac, Green Day retreated from the spotlight for a year to rest and spend time with their families. During that extended break, they decided to not worry about their supposedly lost street credibility and make an album according to their instincts, which meant more experimentation and less of their trademark punk-pop. Of course, speedy, catchy punk is at the core of the group's sound, so there are plenty of familiar moments on the resultant album, Nimrod, but there are also new details that make the record an invigorating, if occasionally frustrating, listen. Although punk-pop is Green Day's forte, they sound the most alive on Nimrod when they're breaking away from their formula, whether it's the shuffling "Hitchin' a Ride," the bitchy, tongue-in-cheek humor of "The Grouch," the surging surf instrumental "Last Ride In," the punchy, horn-driven drag-queen saga "King for a Day," or the acoustic, string-laced ballad "Good Riddance." It's only when the trio confines itself to three chords that it sounds tired, but Billie Joe has such a gift for hooky, instantly memorable melodies that even these moments are enjoyable, if unremarkable. Still, Nimrod suffers from being simply too much — although it clocks in at under 50 minutes, the 18 tracks whip by at such a breakneck speed that it leaves you somewhat dazed. With a little editing, Green Day's growth would have been put in sharper relief, and Nimrod would have been the triumphant leap forward it set out to be. As it stands, it's a muddled but intermittently exciting record that is full of promise.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre300/e303/e30307z0108.jpg Warning (Oct 3, 2000) 4.5 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine 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.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg400/g478/g47837woek6.jpg American Idiot (Sep 21, 2004) 4.5 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine It's a bit tempting to peg Green Day's sprawling, ambitious, brilliant seventh album, American Idiot, as their version of a Who album, the next logical step forward from the Kinks-inspired popcraft of their underrated 2000 effort, Warning, but things aren't quite that simple. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn't use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who's mini-opera "A Quick One, While He's Away," whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn't only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle. But the Who are only one of many inspirations on this audacious, immensely entertaining album. The story of St. Jimmy has an arc similar to Hüsker Dü's landmark punk-opera Zen Arcade, while the music has grandiose flourishes straight out of both Queen and Rocky Horror Picture Show (the '50s pastiche "Rock and Roll Girlfriend" is punk rock Meat Loaf), all tied together with a nervy urgency and a political passion reminiscent of the Clash, or all the anti-Reagan American hardcore bands of the '80s. These are just the clearest touchstones for American Idiot, but reducing the album to its influences gives the inaccurate impression that this is no more than a patchwork quilt of familiar sounds, when it's an idiosyncratic, visionary work in its own right. First of all, part of Green Day's appeal is how they have personalized the sounds of the past, making time-honored guitar rock traditions seem fresh, even vital. With their first albums, they styled themselves after first-generation punk they were too young to hear firsthand, and as their career progressed, the group not only synthesized these influences into something distinctive, but chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong turned into a muscular, versatile songwriter in his own right. Warning illustrated their growing musical acumen quite impressively, but here, the music isn't only tougher, it's fluid and, better still, it fuels the anger, disillusionment, heartbreak, frustration, and scathing wit at the core of American Idiot. And one of the truly startling things about American Idiot is how the increased musicality of the band is matched by Armstrong's incisive, cutting lyrics, which effectively convey the paranoia and fear of living in American in days after 9/11, but also veer into moving, intimate small-scale character sketches. There's a lot to absorb here, and cynics might dismiss it after one listen as a bit of a mess when it's really a rich, multi-faceted work, one that is bracing upon the first spin and grows in stature and becomes more addictive with each repeated play. Like all great concept albums, American Idiot works on several different levels. It can be taken as a collection of great songs — songs that are as visceral or as poignant as Green Day at their best, songs that resonate outside of the larger canvas of the story, as the fiery anti-Dubya title anthem proves — but these songs have a different, more lasting impact when taken as a whole. While its breakneck, freewheeling musicality has many inspirations, there really aren't many records like American Idiot (bizarrely enough, the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat is one of the closest, at least on a sonic level, largely because both groups draw deeply from the kaleidoscopic "A Quick One"). In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few — if not the only — records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drh000/h099/h09928wqal4.jpg Bullet in a Bible (live) (Nov 15, 2005) 4 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Bullet in a Bible is a CD/DVD package (also available as a UMD, for those who want to carry it around on a Sony PSP) documenting Green Day's show at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes on their 2005 U.K. tour. The DVD intercuts interview footage with individual members of the trio between the songs on the set, while the CD provides an hourlong distillation of the show. Both the CD and DVD manage to be big, splashy productions — after all, the DVD is produced to take full advantage of a home theater system, while the CD has a bright, clean kick to its mix — that still retain a palpable sense of excitement and grit. This isn't the wild, reckless Green Day of the early and mid-'90s — this is Green Day the arena punk pros, who know how to fill a stadium while still sounding as if they're playing in a packed little club. None of their '90s punk-pop peers have such a large following or can command such large, adoring crowds, and Bullet in a Bible makes it clear why: no other band in 2005 can play to the mainstream while still seeming nervy and vital. In other words, nobody does it better than Green Day, and this live package is a testimonial to the band at its peak.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre900/e984/e98442bavcl.jpg International Superhits! (Nov 13, 2001) 5 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine In the heady days of the post-grunge mid-'90s, it was hard to see who were real and who were pretenders — and that didn't even take into account whose music would stand the test of time and whose wouldn't. Which is a roundabout way of saying that even if Green Day's breakthrough record, Dookie, sold millions upon millions of copies, it was hard to tell if it was a fluke of their talent or their time — whether they deserved it or not, or whether they just were in the right place at the right time. Years later, after many more hits and brilliant albums like Warning, it became clear that Green Day were an exceptional band that was blessed to come along at precisely the right time, so they could flourish commercially and artistically. If you look at their peers, you'll realize that not many were able to pull that trick off, and a collection like International Superhits! confirms that they not only were popular and good, but they could have held their own against their idols. And that's not an idle boast, either — listening to this generous 21-track collection, which does contain all the hits but also a new song and such non-LP songs as "J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)" (from the Angus soundtrack, if you're keeping track), it becomes clear that the group was as melodic as the Jam or the Buzzcocks and as impassioned as the Clash, only they were American and coming about 15 years too late. Those British comparisons are accurate — they borrowed the sound and style of classic U.K. punk and delivered it with the spirit and attitude of the '80s underground, which gave them a distinctly '90s spin, where '80s irony met '60s and '70s classicism. So, even if they were unintentionally working within a familiar framework, they infused it with passion and unpredictability — particularly in the sense that nobody would have guessed that Billie Joe Armstrong was such a damn good songwriter, no matter if he was writing frenzied punk like "Brain Stew/Jaded," sub-Stray Cat strut like "Hitchin' a Ride," or affecting pop like "When I Come Around" and "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." Better still, that just scratches the surfaces of his talents, and it doesn't even acknowledge that he partnered with a band that could deliver those songs, resulting in a body of work more consistent and thrilling than the Sex Pistols and more ambitious than the Ramones. If that sounds like sacrilege, well, you just haven't listened with open ears, as this stellar collection proves. Distilled to their singles, Green Day sound fiercer than ever, and more musically vibrant — and, if you're a fan of the albums, it's easy to realize that this just scratches the surface of what they've done. But that surface is spectacular — proof positive that Green Day are one of the great punk bands, regardless of era. And there's no better proof of that than this addictive, essential collection.
February 17, 200718 yr Author http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf300/f359/f35972bwo3n.jpg Shenanigans (B-sides & rarities collection) (Jul 2, 2002) 4 Stars Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Shenanigans is the companion piece to 2001's International Superhits. Where that compilation collected Green Day's singles, this rounds up the B-sides and such ephemera as soundtrack compilations, gathering the best (plus the new "Ha Ha You're Dead") for a 14-track trek through the band's alternate history. Now, any serious rock listener knows that B-sides don't necessarily mean subpar material, and such '90s bands as Oasis and Suede have had B-sides every bit as good as the material that made the official albums, and their subsequent B-sides albums have been gems in their discographies. This is largely because both bands had prime periods where everything they did pretty much turned to gold. Green Day never quite had an equivalent prime period. After they made their mark with Dookie, they maintained a high level of quality, constantly expanding their vision and refining their craft with each album, but they never had a time where they burned so brightly they couldn't fit all the great songs onto the proper albums and had to spill 'em out over the B-sides. Green Day knew what their best songs were, and apart from "J.A.R.," which they threw out to the Angus soundtrack, they kept 'em on the albums, and they turned out material for B-sides largely because they had to; that was the game in the '90s — you had to make sure the multi-part singles in the U.K. had unique material, and if a soundtrack came calling, you had to ante up. So, the songs that comprise Shenanigans are an appealing mixed bag since they were, by and large, songs Green Day finished because they had to. Since they're an excellent, restless band, there's variety here — bits of surf rock, classic British Invasion, classic British punk, and singalong pop — nothing is less than enjoyable, and some of it is quite good. But it's never terrific, revelatory, or amazing, giving the dedicated fans songs they just can't live without (to reduce it to the Oasis/Suede terms, no "Acquiesce," no "My Insatiable One"). It's fun, to be sure, especially for the fans who are the compilation's target audience, but everything here sounds like the classic definition of B-sides — good and familiar, but not as good as what made the album.
