by Lichfield1979

Created on: November 14, 2008

Dookie by Green Day (1994)

Billie Joe Armstrong - Vocals, Guitar

Mike Dirnt - Bass Guitar

Tre Cool - Drums

This was not the first Green Day record but it marked their major label debut and also signalled Billie Joe Armstrong was one of the most talented pop-songwriters of his generation. MTV hyped the single Longview to the gills but Basket Case has probably endured as the album's most famous song. Dookie has sold something in the order of fifteen million units worldwide. It was ten years before American Idiot matched the critical and commercial success of this record again, but in the interim the band continued to have hit singles and were undoubtedly one of the most influential rock bands of their era, spawning a legion of imitators, for better or worse. As such, their 1990s American peers are to be found in the rarefied stratosphere populated by such acts as Metallica, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, REM, Weezer, Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Nirvana. In the UK they influenced Busted and McFly.

My favourite ever review of Green Day posited that Billie Joe's singing persona sounds like an American pretending to be a British man pretending to be an American, and that's probably not far wrong. Despite the frequently alleged Britishness of these punkish endeavours, if I absolutely had to compare Green Day to a punk band I'd probably pick an American one, The Ramones, and if I were trying to detect British influences in the songwriter's musical attitude, I might tentatively venture for The Who or Black Sabbath. Although die hard fans would probably seek to identify the band with a lineage tracing back through The Clash, The Jam, The Sex Pistols et al, Green Day have also clearly absorbed the lessons of 1980s alternative acts such as The Replacements and Husker Du, and fused these influences within nominally "punk" frameworks, but also alongside a deeply commercial instinct that frequently incites criticism from the old guard. It would be fair to say though that corporate rock has rarely sounded this competently crowd pleasing, so I find it hard to begrudge Billie Joe his populism. Like Anthony Kiedis, another front man of a band with a reputation for harder stuff, Armstrong knows how to write a great tune with unexpected but simple dimensions.

One - Burnout

Burnout presents the illusion of having rougher surfaces than it really does and fairly bounces along thanks to a tight and snappy rhythm section as the vocal postures with cultural affectations.

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