Is the latest Green Day album deliberately shit?

[marquis_de_sad]

How could you tell the difference hahahahaa

The theory goes:
- this is their last contractually obliged album for their record label (Warner Bros)
- they don't like their current record label and can't wait to leave
- they deliberately made the cover ugly (minimal t-shirt sales) and put a naughty word in the album title
- they made the album only just long enough to make it qualify as an album (26 minutes)

I've only heard the title track, and it is indeed terrible. But it's still a song. One thing that's noticeable is that Billie Joe's voice is barely recognisable as he sings in a falsetto throughout that's buried under distortion. And it doesn't sound like a Green Day song in general, more like I dunno the Mooney Suzuki or something.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I buy the theory, real upper tier mainstream success seemed to break the brain of the frontman quite dramatically so anything is possible

[Noodle Lizard]

Oh wow haha, that really is awful.  Not that I've ever had much respect for Green Day, but that's a real downgrade nevertheless.

One of the comments had it right:  sounds like music from an iPod commercial (in 2005).

[sevendaughters]

my first encounter with this was someone posting their promo line for the record, which is

this record is The New!
soul, Motown,  glam and manic anthemic. Punks,  freaks and punishers!
The Dirty messy . The Stink. ,

which I took to mean "I've finally heard Ted Leo"

And this single sounds like a major label attempt to do a Ted Leo.

[A Hat Like That]

Oh wow haha, that really is awful.  Not that I've ever had much respect for Green Day, but that's a real downgrade nevertheless.

One of the comments had it right:  sounds like music from an iPod commercial (in 2005).

"The all new Ford 2020. Built for the toughest of drives with all the comfort in the word."

sick burn

[purlieu]

2019 and Green Day discover Does it Offend You, Yeah?

[kngen]

my first encounter with this was someone posting their promo line for the record, which is

which I took to mean "I've finally heard Ted Leo"

And this single sounds like a major label attempt to do a Ted Leo.

Funnily enough, my first reaction was 'Are they trying to sound like Chisel?'


Which has at least made me pull out my copy of 8am All Day, cos I haven't listened to that in years.

[Twed]

I think they just phoned it in because they're old and rich and just wanted to do enough to work to avoid getting sued. If I was in their position I wouldn't want to summon the energy to be deliberately shit. That takes effort.

[imitationleather]

I think they just phoned it in because they're old and rich and just wanted to do enough to work to avoid getting sued. If I was in their position I wouldn't want to summon the energy to be deliberately shit. That takes effort.

Yeah rather than it being a calculated attempt at being bad to me it just sounds like there was zero effort involved.

If they were trying to be shit on purpose I think it would all feel a lot more knowing.

[marquis_de_sad]

I think they just phoned it in because they're old and rich and just wanted to do enough to work to avoid getting sued. If I was in their position I wouldn't want to summon the energy to be deliberately shit. That takes effort.

There is probably a lot of truth to this when it comes to the music. The artwork though:

[QDRPHNC]

Sounds like Eagles of Death Metal.

[Twed]

The artwork though:

I see old duffers trying to connect to the kidz

[madhair60]

i like it okay it makes me want to play Burnout 3 on PS2

[wosl]

There is probably a lot of truth to this when it comes to the music. The artwork though:

The question of how deliberately bad it's meant to be aside, this appears in the Terrible Album Covers thread, where it fails to be as terrible as the cover of Bowie's Reality, which features there in the post directly above it.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

take away the weird Art Attack font on the band name and the vomiting unicorn and the cover would be passable

[a duncandisorderly]

If they were trying to be shit on purpose I think it would all feel a lot more knowing.

more entertaining too.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Shitday more like.

[Glamorgan testicle ward]

I would have loved it if the new Tool artwork was like this. The third eye psychedelic experience is getting predictable, vomiting unicorns for the kidz is where it's at.

[marquis_de_sad]

take away the weird Art Attack font on the band name and the vomiting unicorn and the cover would be passable

[Glamorgan testicle ward]

That's a vast improvement, redeemed the aesthetic.

[greenman]

I'm guessing the short length is an attempt to look a bit more genuinely punk as well.

[Noodle Lizard]

I think they just phoned it in because they're old and rich and just wanted to do enough to work to avoid getting sued. If I was in their position I wouldn't want to summon the energy to be deliberately shit. That takes effort.

You do wonder why, in this day and age, a band that big even needs to be on a label at all.  Is it just for the upfront cash?  Seems stupid, really.

[Noodle Lizard]

There must be something in the water.  I really can't get my head around how a successful band whose members at least claim to have been primarily inspired by genuinely subversive or experimental artists (didn't Green Day cite Flipper as one of their biggest influences once?) can make all that money, gain such a big platform and then do ... what they've been doing for the past 20 or 30 years.  If this is their "fuck you" album ... it sounds an awful lot like they're trying to chase what's popular.  If there was even an ounce of the "punk rock" spirit in them to begin with, aren't there a million other things they could do with that platform?  It so rarely happens.  I don't get it, unless these bands never actually gave a fuck about anything in the first place.  That's what I'm leaning towards with Green Day.

[popcorn]

Isn't the "they must have done this just to get out of their record label" argument the thing fans always say when bands release a shite album?

[buzby]

my first encounter with this was someone posting their promo line for the record, which is

which I took to mean "I've finally heard Ted Leo"

And this single sounds like a major label attempt to do a Ted Leo.

Funnily enough, Leo was on Baerkley-based indie label Lookout!, who released Green Day's first 2 albums and EPs. They forced the label's closure in 2005 after reclaiming the rights to their early recordings in an unpaid royalties dispute.

[sevendaughters]

Funnily enough, Leo was on Baerkley-based indie label Lookout!, who released Green Day's first 2 albums and EPs. They forced the label's closure in 2005 after reclaiming the rights to their early recordings in an unpaid royalties dispute.

Knew they were on Lookout! and wasn't being facetious about the Leo/Chisel thing (reminds me of when the rhythm section of Muse would do Lightning Bolt as a jam onstage but sounded like a weak facsimile) but didn't know they basically killed them off.

[marquis_de_sad]

Isn't the "they must have done this just to get out of their record label" argument the thing fans always say when bands release a shite album?

Yes.

[idunnosomename]

take away the weird Art Attack font on the band name and the vomiting unicorn and the cover would be passable

it's just a detail of american idiot though



in that sense it is a lot like Bowie's The Last Day where he just put the title in a white square over Heroes

great minds get ripped off by the crap version of the kinks

[kngen]

Funnily enough, Leo was on Baerkley-based indie label Lookout!, who released Green Day's first 2 albums and EPs. They forced the label's closure in 2005 after reclaiming the rights to their early recordings in an unpaid royalties dispute.

Mmm, it was more that Larry Livermore was a shady bastard who hadn't been paying royalties to a ton of bands. It'd been a longtime coming, and was no surprise to anyone in the Bay Area. Also, Lookout pulling out of their deal with Mordam contributed a fair bit to the latter's demise, so what goes around ...


I'm no fan of Green Day (apart from this: https://youtu.be/oTLF9b9fEMA - still great, although the Skene Records version was better), but they've done their fair share in keeping Gilman St afloat despite the massive amount of gentrification in that area, so fair fucks to them.

Edit: Urgh, just looked up on discogs how much the green vinyl version of their first LP goes for these days - about 10 times what I sold mine for. Why do I do it myself?

[Monsieur Verdoux]

it's just a detail of american idiot though



in that sense it is a lot like Bowie's The Last Day where he just put the title in a white square over Heroes

great minds get ripped off by the crap version of the kinks

yes, that wasn't hard to clock. the obvious appropriation would have been passable as a punkish, postmodern gesture but its let down by the garish design choices