Is the latest Green Day album deliberately shit?

[buzby]

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 think that's a bit unfair on Livermore. He resigned in April 1997 after disagreement with his other two partners Chris Appelgren and Patrick Hynes over how to respond to Screeching Weasel's demands for a higher royalty rate or  release them from their distributon contract and hand over thie rmasters (they had left to sign to Fat Wreck Chords). Livermore and Hynes wanted to let the courts decide, Appelgren wanted to give them their masters back (Hynes ended up leaving shortly after Livermore as well).

Upto that point there had bene no complaints from bands about unpaid royalties. It was also Appelgren who decided to switch their CD distribution from Mordam to RED in 2000.

[kngen]

Nothing is unfair on Livermore; he's a shady, creepy hypocrite.

[alan nagsworth]

I see old duffers trying to connect to the kidz

That doesn't make sense when you consider that they've been successfully connecting with a young audience for literally their whole career.

Also Green Day aren't a very edgy band at all so it should really come as no surprise that, even if they wanted to try and be edgy by pulling a contract-escaping gallop like this, that doesn't mean they'd be capable of doing a remotely good job of it.

[Twed]

That doesn't make sense when you consider that they've been successfully connecting with a young audience for literally their whole career.

This doesn't make sense

Unless you think that nothing can ever change

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I think they've had 2 cycles of connecting with the kids, one in '94 which involved an audience growing up along with the music, to the point of the Warning album in '99 having encroaching middle age as thematic undergirding, then a whole new generation of fans in '04, with an image change and videos that featured depressed suburban teenagers, but no new audience pickup since then, subsequent albums catering to the same dwindling, aging audience. I remember that by the time they returned with 21st Century Breakdown in '09 they were considered quite unhip, a relic of the Bush era even then. So I think they're a nostalgia act at this point, even with their major mainstream act status, something that seems to haunt Billie Joe Armstrong and may have contributed to his famous televised meltdown, but he's just not quite talented enough to think outside the box and rectify this. He's not Joe Strummer or Johnny Rotten, he doesn't have the ability to turn his back on his audience and radically change his approach, or to burn out defiantly and elegantly. I used to love Green Day, but they were always the upper tier of mediocre, and now here we are

[sevendaughters]

my mum bought the single for Boulevard of Broken Dreams, don't DARE say they were uncool

[idunnosomename]

never sure why Ray Davies didn't sue them over Warning lifting the riff from Picture Book. I'm not one for plagiarism in music but Christ, it's fucking blatant. but if The Offspring got away with Why Don't You Get a Job? I guess go for it

[marquis_de_sad]

Same reason they didn't sue Papa Roach for nicking the riff from Brain Stew/Jaded.

[thecuriousorange]

Brain Stew:  https://youtu.be/Nb13I34J8K4

[Quote]

They must have made enough money to retire and live comfortably, so why even bother carrying on? The dumb thrill of Dookie was quite enjoyable when I was 13 or so and completely ignorant to all but the most obvious of 70's punk. They can/could write a good tune, in their own narrow genre of poppy punk. A few years later I hid the CD so no one would realise how lame and unhip I had been, but it's okay. Most kids don't stumble upon the great mind blowing albums straight away, they just listen to whatever shit happens to be around and is accessible to them.

I never understood why they came back the first time around, post 90's heyday. Forty year olds in eyeliner is never a good look and Dookie alone must have sold enough to buy everyone a mansion and swell the college fund coffers. If you really miss the thrill of the old days just organise the odd tour now and again.

No one needs to hear a new Green Day album in 2019, even if it is only half an hour long. I notice they're heading out on tour with Weezer, another band who just don't know when to pack in it.

[non capisco]

never sure why Ray Davies didn't sue them over Warning lifting the riff from Picture Book. I'm not one for plagiarism in music but Christ, it's fucking blatant. but if The Offspring got away with Why Don't You Get a Job? I guess go for it

I have a certain amount of ineradicable affection for 90s Green Day but good god where they going all out on the plagiarism ticket with that Warning album of theirs, the scamps. They made Oasis look like, I dunno, Sun Ra.

**LAZY REPOST FROM THREE YEARS AGO BECAUSE I AM SHIT AND TOO MISERABLE TO MAKE AN EFFORT NOW**

Billie Joe Armstrong:  A nice juicy court case, that's what we need, lads. I've written a song that's exactly the same as Picture Book by The Kinks, listen....

Tre Cool: Yes, that is the same as 'Picture Book' by The Kinks alright. We're going to get sued to fuck for this. I'm actually weirdly getting a semi thinking about all the trouble we'll get in.

The bass player whose name I can't recall: Yes, strangely, that's happening to me too.

Billie Joe: Yeah, lads, I'm got a right old diamond cutter on for some reason. I'm overwhelmingly sexually excited by the prospect of getting sued. Weird, eh? Anyway, I've called this song 'Bicture Pook'.

Bass player: I think that might be a bit much, Billie Joe. Shall we call it something else?

Billie Joe: Fair enough. I dunno, 'Warning'. That will do. Right, see you later, chaps. I'm off for a wank, I can't hold it in.

Tre Cool: WAIT. What if we rip off MORE songs. Would our level of sexual excitement not exponentially increase the more songs we obviously just copy and call something different?

Billie Joe: Well, I don't know. I don't think I can hold this in much longer.

Tre Cool: We could do a massive rip off of Elvis Costello's 'Oliver's Army', say...and..call it 'Oliver's Barmy!'

Bass chops: Again, while the increasing tumescence of my penis suggests I am not averse to the idea, I feel I should again step in and be the voice of reason, we can't call it something that rhymes with the actual original song. It's just too obvious. It'd be...sexier...if we mask it with a different title.

Bille Joe: Fair enough, I'll call it 'Church On Sunday'. Now will you lot just shut up and let me have a massive wank?

Tre Cool: But..if we did...a third one....

Bass: Yes. Fuck me, lads, I'm tenting like a cunt here...say it...say it.

Tre Cool: 'Downtown' by Petula Clark! We'll rip off that! Completely! Not even disguising it!

Bass: Oh god, I'm close.

Tre Cool: We'll call it...

Bass: I don't care, anything, anything

Tre Cool: I can't even remember what that one will be called.

(All three members of Green Day ejaculate torrents of punk-pop jism)

And that is the story of when Green Day turned rubbish. THE END.

**LAZY REPOST ENDS**

I've listened to their new song and yes that isn't very good is it but I don't think it's them being deliberately shit. I think they think that's good. Let's just do 'Fire' by Jimi Hendrix in the style of a shit Beck. That's what the kids are into.

[thecuriousorange]

Remember when they released a single that was just All the Young Dudes?

https://youtu.be/Mke9EHMQMYI

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I'm sure its been mentioned before but '21 Guns' pilfers the chorus melody from ELO's 'Telephone Line'

[SteveDave]

never sure why Ray Davies didn't sue them over Warning lifting the riff from Picture Book. I'm not one for plagiarism in music but Christ, it's fucking blatant. but if The Offspring got away with Why Don't You Get a Job? I guess go for it

I'm amazed Offspring got away with Self Esteem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wS7sYvleho

[ajsmith2]

never sure why Ray Davies didn't sue them over Warning lifting the riff from Picture Book. I'm not one for plagiarism in music but Christ, it's fucking blatant. but if The Offspring got away with Why Don't You Get a Job? I guess go for it

There's the story about the Kinks management in 1968 trying to persuade the band to sue The Doors for 'Hello I Love You's recycling of the 'All Day And All Of The Night' riff, and Ray and the boys refusing cos they thought it was so blatant that they found it funny. Maybe the same good humoured reaction applied here. There's also the fact that during the Kinks 70s/80s stadium period, Ray became a bit of an unashamed riff nicker himself, so maybe was concerned about looking hypocritical.

[kngen]

I'm amazed Offspring got away with Self Esteem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wS7sYvleho

The Offspring pretty much launched their career on stealing other people's tunes - the first LP is like a medley of So Cal HC classics. A bit of Agent Orange here, a bit of CH3 there. Pretty shameless. (Actually quite a good LP though otherwise. Absolutely not a hint of the horrors that were to come.)

[ajsmith2]

I never understood why they came back the first time around, post 90's heyday. Forty year olds in eyeliner is never a good look and Dookie alone must have sold enough to buy everyone a mansion and swell the college fund coffers. If you really miss the thrill of the old days just organise the odd tour now and again.

Cos they were trying to carry on with their career and the only thing they knew how to do? To prove they could compete and endure artistically? Because, no matter how naff or naive it may seem to many, they felt they had 'something to say' about the Bush era and they had a bigger platform than most to say it on? They were actually only in their very early 30s during the American Idiot era, and whether you like the music on the album or not (I don't for the record) it was a work that captured the political zeitgeist of the time as well as catching the updraft of rock musics (perhaps final) blast of mainstream popularity. I remember at the time many self consciously hip music fans who had had them pigeonholed as 90s has beens were confused, saying things like 'why are Green day still big? I DON't UNDERSTAND!!!' seemingly in denial that after a lull Green Day had successfully reinvented themselves for the new decade and in fact become bigger and more 'credible' than they ever were before, to the point of becoming a pop-politicised stadium act nipping the heels of U2 etc. But as Monsieur Verdoux says above, after that era they got more aimless and couldn't adjust to succeeding pop paradigms, despite retaining a large aging residual fanbase. Unlike Weezer they haven't sought or achieved 'meme power' that gives them currency with the youth of today (maybe the confusingly bad new album cover and music is a bid to get that?) and so they must come across a a bit of a boring ol dad band to todays young uns.

[sevendaughters]

don't forget that the added bonus of nu metal being brilliant was that skate punk was gangbusters too, so Green Day just rode back in to claim their crowd.

[Spiteface]

This:


Is better than these:



I know that's not saying much, considering the trilogy wasn't well-recieved (and then there was Billie Joe Armstrong's meltdown), but yeah, not overproducing things and only releasing an hour's worth of material suddenly makes that period seem much better.


But then I also think Warning was underrated, so what so I know?