Tag Archives: green day

Green Day preview the first of three new albums

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Mike

Green Day revealed their cover art for their forthcoming album Uno today, the first of three albums to be released at the end of this year and the start of next (to be named Uno, Dos and Tre and released September 25th, November 13 and January 15 respectively). I’m an old Green Day fan from way back but I’ve sort of lost interest over the last few years as they disappeared up their own arseholes. First impressions of this new material isn’t great either – the band have debuted a few tracks live – but hey, don’t count your eggs until they’re hatched, right? I’m hoping I’ll be pleasantly surprised upon its release – some of 21st Century Breakdown‘s album tracks were pretty good, even if the singles were a bit silly. The cover is the most encouraging part of all of this – a clear sign that the band … Read more →

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Green Day’s ‘Awesome As Fuck’ – the story (mostly) checks out

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Mike

There are a lot of Green Day haters out there. One of my great musical awakenings was as a naive 15 year old, and discovering punk through great 90s bands like Green Day, Bad Religion, NOFX, The Descendents and Rancid. I also remember that overnight, all music reviewers – most of whom had been content to review Metallica and Stone Temple Pilots albums up till that point – suddenly became experts on punk over night. “Green Day aren’t real punk because they’re on a major label and they’re selling lots of records.” That was one of their major complaints, overlooking the fact that the Ramones and the Sex Pistols were on major labels, as were their beloved Clash who sold a tonne of records. No one ever calls out non-punk bands for selling too many records do they? And since when did these ‘punk’ ideals suddenly become so important to … Read more →

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Five great follow up albums

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Mike

It’s extremely difficult to pull off a decent follow up album to a successful debut or breakthrough record. Think about it: the majority of follow ups to major albums are either disappointing in that they fail to follow the lofty expectations set by their predecessor, or suffer from an ill advised change of direction that alienates existing fans. Think Oasis’s “Be Here Now”*, Michael Jackson’s aptly named “Bad” (too soon?), The Stone Roses’ “Second Coming”, or Snoop Dogg’s awful “The Doggfather” (does anyone even remember that one?). All of which is completely understandable given the huge amounts of pressure from fans and record labels, which makes it even more impressive when a band actually pulls a great follow up album out of the bag. Here are a few of my favourites (Lets just take “In Utero” as a given, OK?): Weezer, “Pinkerton” – The quintessential dark follow up. A pop … Read more →

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