I quite like Green Day as well to be honest.

[Dr Sanchez]

They had some good tunes but went up their own arses trying to be political and releasing pretentious double albums and what not.

Stick to songs about wanking and weed lads.

[Twed]

American Idiot's lyrics are unassailably "secondary school essay".

[Monsieur Verdoux]

American Idiot is my ultimate 'something that seemed incredibly profound when I was a teenager that is actually absolutely incoherent'

[Sebastian Cobb]

Greenday get older, their audience stay the same age.

[madhair60]

American Idiot's lyrics are unassailably "secondary school essay".

American Idiot is my ultimate 'something that seemed incredibly profound when I was a teenager that is actually absolutely incoherent'

Don't care, Letterbomb is a banger

[Jerzy Bondov]

Fucking loved American Idiot when it came out. A hand grenade but it's a heart and it's bleeding - YES. Short sleeved black shirt and a red tie - YES. Having a go at George W. Bush - YES. Stomping around my semi-rural hometown listening to it on my 1st generation iPod Mini which I bought from the Virgin Megastore - YES.

[up_the_hampipe]

Pokemon and Green Day were two things that kids were obsessed with when I was growing up, but I didn't really get them. American Idiot was annoying in its ubiquity. Wake Me Up When Sepetember Ends is a good track though.

[Chollis]

Lads can we have a word about these anachronisms, American Idiot came out about 5 years after Pokemon was big

edit: turns out American Idiot came out in 2004, I remember thinking it was S4C even at the time despite liking their earlier stuff. Incredibly sophisticated for a 14 year old

[up_the_hampipe]

Lads can we have a word about these anachronisms, American Idiot came out about 5 years after Pokemon was big

Yes, I was a child for several years.

[Twed]

Wake Me Up When Sepetember Ends is a good track though.

It's a dirge. Good Riddance might be played at every graduation etc. but it's ten times the song Wake Me Up When September Ends is.

[Glebe]

My brother saw them in what was The White Horse but is now a Starbucks, natch (see below), here in Dublin before they became famous... Billie Joe Armstrong revisited the site a couple of years ago:

Green Day visited the first ever bar they played in Dublin... only to find that it's now a Starbucks.

[Dr Sanchez]

My brother saw them in what was The White Horse but is now a Starbucks, natch (see below), here in Dublin before they became famous... Billie Joe Armstrong revisited the site a couple of years ago:

Green Day visited the first ever bar they played in Dublin... only to find that it's now a Starbucks.

It's a pity Green Day didn't turn into a Starbucks.

[popcorn]

It's a pity Green Day didn't turn into a Starbucks.

I think they basically did, didn't they?

[alan nagsworth]

It's a dirge. Good Riddance might be played at every graduation etc. but it's ten times the song Wake Me Up When September Ends is.

A lot of people seem to react with astonishment when they find out Armstrong was only 18 when he wrote that song, that something so deep and beautiful could come from someone so young, but it makes perfect sense to me. Tune's fuckin wack.

[grassbath]

American Idiot is my ultimate 'something that seemed incredibly profound when I was a teenager that is actually absolutely incoherent'

Who cares? We've all got to have stuff like that. There are much, much shitter things that could fill that position.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Sure, but who cares? That's just my personal experience

[Sin Agog]

My brother saw them in what was The White Horse but is now a Starbucks, natch (see below), here in Dublin before they became famous... Billie Joe Armstrong revisited the site a couple of years ago:

Green Day visited the first ever bar they played in Dublin... only to find that it's now a Starbucks.

It would have been far cooler if it had been taken over by a Dumb Starbucks.

[Spiteface]

I've seen so many shit cover bands and "Longview" is the song every one of them do as if let the bass player show he can do more than just root notes. Fucking sick of that intro.

I don't mind Green Day, but Isomniac is the only full album of theirs I like, the rest... a "best of" is plenty.

[Glebe]

It would have been far cooler if it had been taken over by a Dumb Starbucks.

Or these guys.

[alan nagsworth]

I've seen so many shit cover bands and "Longview" is the song every one of them do as if let the bass player show he can do more than just root notes. Fucking sick of that intro.

I don't mind Green Day, but Isomniac is the only full album of theirs I like, the rest... a "best of" is plenty.

Insomniac is brilliant, in all its ludicrously over-produced amphetamine-juiced glory. It's just chock full of fun riffs. Geek Stink Breath is such a belter. Love the video of all the dental surgery.

[Twed]

Geek Stink Breath makes me want to be a Gen X teenager, there's just something about the sound of it and the melody that is the best of that era.

Edit: Oh wait I was a teenager two years after this came out

[Jockice]

It's the guy's voice for me. I just find it whiny and irritating. I find it hard to get past that. I don't know why this should be, as there are plenty of worse voices about. It's like Andy Partridge's face stopping me from liking XTC as much as I perhaps should. Arbitrary and unfair, but, hey, we all have our prejudices.

[alan nagsworth]

Fuck, Green Day is one thing but I'm genuinely really sorry you don't like XTC. That is a huge downer. A comment at the dinner table that makes dad drop the fork and mum hold back the tears, like in the League of Gentlemen where Benjamin refuses to piss in the pint glass and Auntie Val cracks up. Jeez I think I'm even welling up here

[Jockice]

Fuck, Green Day is one thing but I'm genuinely really sorry you don't like XTC. That is a huge downer. A comment at the dinner table that makes dad drop the fork and mum hold back the tears, like in the League of Gentlemen where Benjamin refuses to piss in the pint glass and Auntie Val cracks up. Jeez I think I'm even welling up here

Don't worry Alan. I don't hate them. I even bought a few of their records in the 80s. Theoretically they're actually the sort of band I should really like. But that wacky yet horribly self-conscious gurning...

(yes, I know he hated being on stage etc. But still...)

[madhair60]

longviews a good song not sure what everyones fucking problem is tbh

[thecuriousorange]

I liked them when I was 15 and the newest album was Warning, though, at that age, it was my least favourite of theirs. The best one is Nimrod and I've never heard the later ones, although going by the singles I'm not missing anything.

[dallasman]

I think I mentioned this in a "name drop" thread, but it's relevant here too... There was a girl in my year at high school who'd just returned from a few (I think 3) years in America. She looked like a real American dream girl too, beautiful, long-haired, smart and experienced. I think the different educational models meant she was a year older and had to catch up, which made her even cooler. Afaik, she got nothing but good grades, but she'd also do stuff like suggesting to my friend and me that we buy some sheets of acid from her Stateside pals, as she and her new boyfriend had gotten into fucking on acid, and were getting in a shipment by air mail. We half-regretted not going for that for a good while, because we had a perfect plan for the Easter holidays, but certain key people weakly bowed out and it came to nothing.

Anyway, at some point, Green Day became famous, and of course it turns out this girl used to be Billy Joe Armstrong's long-time serious girlfriend and he'd written songs for her and the whole deal. So I could possibly have bought drugs from one of his regular dealers if the Easter Acid Trip had gone through, but that's purely speculative.

A few years later, my other friend and I had a very stupid double act where we played old-timey entertainers. It was a schtick we did in private that we eventually made some performances of at studenty functions and parties (not necessarily because people demanded it). It was pretty much as you probably imagine. When, as a lark, we booked something like a "proper" gig, we had to expand our repertoire of three originals with some banter, poetry, and my solo cover of Green Day's "Basket Case". In a technique I've gone on to perfect in other media, the idea was to combine a half-assed bit of wordplay with something vaguely amusing, and create entertainment. You know how Hendrix used to play the guitar on his back? We did something with that, where my partner would announce that I was about to perform a great feat; playing the guitar on my back while singing in a foreign language. I then laid down on my back and played a verse of "Basket Case", in a style akin to our other material. This was sadly never filmed, but audio survives in the form of this unofficial live album:



https://soundcloud.com/bruno-faetten/dorian-spiller-gitar-pa-ryggen-basket-case/s-VdnDv

It's really terrible, but it's less than one minute. Click it. If it gets enough plays, I'll treat everyone to my Norwegian-language Smiths cover.

[famethrowa]

https://soundcloud.com/bruno-faetten/dorian-spiller-gitar-pa-ryggen-basket-case/s-VdnDv

It's really terrible, but it's less than one minute. Click it. If it gets enough plays, I'll treat everyone to my Norwegian-language Smiths cover.

Hey I don't mind hearing it given the Peter Sarstedt treatment!


While we're on covers, here is one of the best, Basket Case turned into an early 80's TV theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJwKaGaSAjE

[dallasman]

Hey I don't mind hearing it given the Peter Sarstedt treatment!

Some buzz is building over on SoundCloud. Watch the "Your FREE music" thread for future announcements and exclusives!

While we're on covers, here is one of the best, Basket Case turned into an early 80's TV theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJwKaGaSAjE

Sitting down, eh? I prefer my take.