(Credits: Emmie America)
The 1990s seemed to be a tough time for Green Day. Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can any decade where your major label debut album sells ten million copies and makes your band one of the biggest in the world be anything other than a good time? It’s a fair question. One where the answer comes from whether you believe that anyone at all can look you in the eyes and honestly say they don’t want that.
On the surface, Dookie being one of the biggest hit albums of the whole decade seems like the stuff dreams are made of. Three working-class kids tooling around the NorCal punk scene hepped up on records by Buzzcocks, The Replacements and Bad Religion, along with a truly apocalyptic amount of weed (why do you think they’re called *Green* Day?). Then, suddenly, they write some of the best pop-punk songs ever made, sign to a major label and hit it big with a classic album. What’s not to love?
Well, from the band’s point of view, basically everything. Their success made them persona non-grata in the scene that nurtured them, and deep down, all the band wanted to be was a punk band. They tried their hardest to remain this way with the three albums that followed Dookie. Both 1995’s Insomniac and 1997’s Nimrod were darker, harder takes on their breakthrough album’s formula.
While they were still sold by the truckload, there was a sense that the band’s belief in themselves as a punk band was holding them back. The truth was they had long since outgrown that. The first proof of came from their next big hit, the acoustic ballad ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’, an achingly sincere breakup song about wishing someone you had a beautiful time with all the best upon parting. This was from a band who, not long previously, was writing songs called ‘Dominated Love Slave’.
Why were Green Day stuck in such a rut?
After Nimrod came out, the Green Day were well and truly stuck between stations. They wanted to be nothing more than a three-chord punk band churning out great rock songs, but they were, quite simply, too talented and too big to stay that way. The best example of this comes from an absolutely riveting interview Tim Quirk conducted with the band for Ray Gun magazine.
In the interview, Billie Joe Armstrong, in particular, seems determined to throw anyone who’d ever thought that music was more than just good songs under the bus. Inspired by a comment Quirk makes about The Smashing Pumpkins, Armstrong goes on a tirade about the idea of “important music”. He says, “To be big and to be ‘important’, it’s really not up to the musician to decide. It just really comes down to good songs.”
He decided to add some examples to his argument, continuing, “No matter which way you package it. Half of the David Bowie stuff is great. Half of it is complete shit. As far as I’m concerned. Same with a lot of bands. Look at Sandinista! [by The Clash]. It’s a pile of shit. I just want to write good songs.” The interview concludes with the band joylessly destroying their hotel room, clearly frustrated with Quirk’s line of questioning.
The ultimate irony of this is that when Green Day did decide to step up to the plate and become the big, shiny stadium rock band with “important things to say”, they saved their own careers and became the biggest band in the world all over again. American Idiot is an album that sounds more like The Who than The Ramones, and it is a full-on concept album to boot.
The very idea of that is something the Green Day from Quirk’s interview would have sneered at. Yet by pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, they truly came into their own—something we can all learn from.
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