Green Day - American Idiot (and should punk bands "experiment"?)

[swinny]

I picked this up (Green Day's new album) today...mainly cos I have a soft spot for their greatest hits and they played a blinder at Reading so only seems fair to have listen.

Apparently in the states they are touring it as a kind of "rock opera" concept album with big fancy stage shows involving more dancing girls and pyrotechnics than you'd probably expect at a US punk show...

As an album I quite like it, lots of Green Day standard fare (ie, mostly full on poppy punk, the odd sullen rocker and a few sullen acoustic slowies)...a very "anti US government" stance (as aired on lead single and title track American Idiot) is where it starts to go wayward though...I have lots of time for Green Day, and I admire any artist willing to take a stand and say what they feel - it just seems a little odd with these guys, like you cant take them seriously - something about them makes me wish they'd just be the fun-loving boys of old and perhaps not try and mature their lyrics but not the music...

Very "Ramones - end of the century" in production (ie, trying to do punk with a wall of sound and 50 instruments) that works occasionaly, but mostly doesn't (I've always thought that end of the century coulda been one of the Ramones best albums if it hadn't been for the production muddying some of the tracks)....there are also 2 song "suites" each 9 minutes long comprising of 5 parts in a kinda medley fashion - which, whilst a nice idea for Brian Wilson, doesnt really work with Punk songs (to me at least)...

So...there we go...a bit of evolution and some experimenting from probably the best of the 90s US-punk bands...if only they'd stuck to what they know...

[non capisco]

Alright, for what it's worth 'IMO'...

Punk as I understand it is a dead concept. It died the second rules were set up within itself that limited what its practitioners could do with their music. Green Day have always been a shit hot pop band (the majority of 'Dookie' is Beatles-standard catchy, 'Nimrod' has some jaw droppingly good songs on it) but their 'punk' leanings are all facsimiles of 1977 stylistic avatars, the same as all these 'nu-punk' bands. They happen to be among the best of their bunch because Billie Joe Armstrong is clearly a shit hot songwriter. But all this 'what should a punk band be able to do with their music' blather should have been laid to rest the minute it's originators disconnected themselves from all that 'three chords and the truth' yakkety-schmakkety (Lydon with PiL, the Clash with 'London Calling'). Punk should never have become a genre, with a genre's stylistic limitations. Whether Green Day should or shouldn't deviate from their blueprint should only depend on whether they have the nous to pull off something different. To be honest, that new single of theirs sounds like it could have been written by one of their lesser imitators.

[chand]

I've always liked Green Day, but like The Offspring, they're the kind of band whose albums I no longer want to buy. I have six Green Day albums and I don't really feel like I need any new ones. Bless 'em for sticking at it and all that, and they're great fun at a festival, but that's as far as it goes for me now.

I won't criticise Green Day for being sell-outs or not punk or whatever. I don't know if they ever claimed to be punk, but they just kept doing their thing and one day everyone was into it. They never really changed their sound to sell millions of records, they just got slightly better at it. Jello Biafra mentions Green Day and The Offspring when he rants about what he calls 'punk fundamentalism', the divisive spirit that has grown up whereby once you sell a certain number of records or hit MTV you suck ass. In some cases bands dp sell out, but for me punk was never about not selling any records or only playing in shitty clubs and spitting on people, it can be more than that.

[Borboski]

Although while perhaps it's a bit adolescent to call it "selling out" The Offspring are clearly after a certain type of audience... and i think we call that audience "frat-boy".  Yes,  "frat-boy rock".


God, I HATE to see them on TV know.  It makes me want to hide all my albums and bootlegs I had when I was 17 in another room.

[Fuckwittio]

I don't like Green Day, but I wouldn't criticise anyone for trying to transcend genre limitations. non capisco was right about stupid rules strangling punk. The whole point of the punk 'lifestyle' is to be individualistic, but you tell that to the scene fascists...and they'll probably call you a sell out.

Remember that band Refused who got shit from their fans for releasing an experimental punk album, The Shape Of Punk To Come. It was excellent & the controversy just made their fans look like narrow-minded tossers.

I love punk rock, but can't stand many of it's elitist fans. I''ve had the piss taken out of me at gigs for the way I dress, for looking 'straight'. I mean what the fuck?
I reckon I'm far more punk rock than any of these herd-conformist cunts.