Green Day

Saw no thread on Green Day was wondering the general opinion is? I have mixed feelings on the band, on one hand I do like some of their songs and albums on the other hand the bands they have inspired with their 'pop Punk rock' such as Jimmy Eat World, Good Charlotte, and Blink 182 IMO is responsiable for some worst music ever marketed as rock let alone punk. Anyway any opinions on Green Day?

Closest I ever got to digging this sort of thing was select tracks by the Offspring, Dexter didn't have quite the same nasal-teenager tone the others did, and sometimes they could bust out with something that was borderline speed metal in ways. This band isn't the most banal to me, but still pretty banal.

I don't mind their various "radio hits" but I've never owned any of their CDs. I have come close to buying the "Dookie" CD on the cheap several times but never pulled the trigger on it

Ah, I'm a big Green Day fan. I remember how all the punks liked them until Dookie, and then pulled the "they changed" crap. The band didn't change at all! Later they had the acoustic tune, Warning was a rather experimental album, as was parts of American Idiot (you gotta respect a punk band that pulls of epic 9-minute plus songs!), but they've largely stayed true to their original sound.

Yeah, they are pop punk, but so were the Ramones.

I like Green Day. I wasn't too thrilled with the American Idiot disc though. And they definitely are pop punk.

I like a few select songs. I think Dookie is one of the best albums to come out in the 90's

Green Day reminds me of my high school days in '94/'95 with the lonely/weird girls wearing Doc Martins and dyeing their hair green. Bad memories. The music never did much for me. I had their best-of compilation for a while but parted ways months ago due to the fact I listened to it once and put it away.

Never could get into them...even Dookie.

they are hit or miss with me

Fat Freddy wrote:

I don't mind their various "radio hits" but I've never owned any of their CDs. I have come close to buying the "Dookie" CD on the cheap several times but never pulled the trigger on it

Six years after this post (and twenty years after the album was released!) I finally pulled the trigger on a cheap ass copy of GD's "Dookie" at a library sale a couple of days ago.

It's OK I guess... pretty typical 90s pop punk. At the time this sorta thing was current, I was still clinging to my Ramones and Anti-Nowhere League albums and being all purist ("This new sh*t ain't punk!") so I pretty much ignored Green Day, Offspring, Rancid, etc. back then. Now I'm old and don't give a sh*t, if it's cheap I'll give it a try.

I've always liked Greenday, and now my kids have caught wind of them and like them, so they're back on my radar.

They are a decent pop rock band and have some good tunes but I understand why punks hate them.

I used to like them quite a bit. In the mid-90s, I too was way too cool and too hardcore for Green Day. However, around when Warning came out, my roommate had it and I got pretty obsessed with it and bought up their whole catalog to the point. I became obsessed then with Kerplunk primarily.

I'm not sure if I burnt myself out on them or if I just shifted in musical tastes, but I own none of those records now and don't really care either way.

If I heard a song from Kerplunk or Warning, I'd probably get into it...but I still don't really care much.

I feel they deserve credit in a way, even if it lead to bad music on the radio, for taking non-commercial bands (especially at the time), like Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks, etc., and molding it into something that, like, made them bazillions of dollars.

I have Dookie and Nimrod. I believe I got them both as free promo discs from the record company when they were new releases. It's been forever since I've given them a spin. Probably should remedy that and see if they are keepers or just space hogs.

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Nah, Green Day is way too upbeat for those mopey emo kids.

Yeah, I don't think pop punk has much in common with emo at all.  Most pop punk lyrics are like metal lyrics, sex, drugs and rock n roll (no dragons though).  Emo is all this whiney, angsty stuff; way too downbeat to go with the uptempo melodies of pop punk or power pop. 

And then there's a band like Alkaline Trio who fall pretty much into the pop punk category but they sing about stuff like zombies, psycho killers and other horror themes.  Definitely not emo.

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Painkiller wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Nah, Green Day is way too upbeat for those mopey emo kids.

Regardless, I think calling them a "punk" band is being too kind. They certainly have more in common with alternative rock than pure punk rock (think of Samhain).

Yeah, now that I can agree with; I wouldn't call Green Day punk.  But here's a question for you PK, how would you classify the music of The Misfits?  Most consider them a seminal punk band yet to me they sound a lot like Green Day with horror lyrics. 

Punk to me is stuff like The Germs, UK Subs, Dead Kennedys, Rancid etc.  I'm not sure I'd even call The Ramones "punk" now; they also have a lot in common with Green Day IMO.

They suck.

Ramones invented punk, yo. Anybody sez they ain't punk, I'll cut 'em.

Witchfinder wrote:

They suck.  

But are they emo?   

That's the important question.

tohostudios wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

They suck.  

But are they emo?   

That's the important question.

  

Green Day were at one time, absolutely considered punk, but they deliberately threw that away as they saw the possibility of $$$$$ on the horizon. My problem with them isn't that they signed a major deal and made a whole heap of radio friendly albums, that is their right and no big deal. It's the fact that they aligned themselves so closely to that whole Gilman St scene (which was the complete opposite of that) in the early days, they really did use that scene to get a name and then dumped the whole idea when people came in with money.

They will always be considered sell outs by punks because that's what they are. But it's got very little to do with the music they make.

Painkiller wrote:

Terrible band, and "pop punk" is just another word for emo.

Sure, if you don't know shit about music.