Billie Joe Armstrong Shares Cover of Wreckless Eric’s ‘Whole Wide World’

[GreenDayItaly]

Billie Joe Armstrong has been no stranger to covers throughout quarantine, but his latest rendition of a new wave classic might just take the cake for his best yet.

The Green Day frontman just dropped his Amazon Original cover of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” on Friday. The punk legend takes the 1977 Nick Lowe-produced track that’s fairly faithful to the original with some extra tambourine and clapping here.

The track follows a summer filled with weekly covers, including Eric Carmen’s “That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” and The Wonders’ “That Thing You Do!” from the 1996 film of the same out of tribute to the late Adam Schlesinger. He’s also covered Tommy James & The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now,” “Manic Monday” with Bangles singer Susannah Hoffs, Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory,” “War Stories” by Starjet, Don Backy’s “Amico” and Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America.” He also recently shared a version of “Johnny B. Goode” that he performed as a kid.

In a recent interview, Armstrong admitted to being uncomfortable with fame and fake fans.

Listen to the track on Amazon Music below.

https://music.amazon.com/albums/B088P8TBS5?ref=dm_ew_al_0_0_cml_MzFtD6J688

 

[HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN]

As as I said in the other thread, fuck Amazon and leak the shit out of this with no regret  

Jokes apart I think it’s absolutely horrible to release music exclusively for one platform, especially if this is Amazon. I would never throw money at this, and IMHO no one should. This fucked up trends have to be boycotted so that fucking artist managers learns how to do their job decently. 

This sucks.  

Ps: fuck Scott Nagelberg. 

[pacejunkie punk]

Damn somebody leak this I’m not signing up for Amazon music

[Matt3BJ]

It is not  not my favorite cover or extremely special, but it is fun and does the trick although though his guitar playing is superb in the song. I'm sure in hours it will be on youtube. My favorite cover so far has been "New England" what about with everyone else? So glad he is back to releasing cool songs that may help us discover new/old artists but with his own unique twist/signature. What a legend!

[Little Boy Named Booze]

I'm not paying $10 for a song lol

[Thatsername]

3 hours ago, HAPPY ROOTING UNICORN said:

As as I said in the other thread, fuck Amazon and leak the shit out of this with no regret  

Jokes apart I think it’s absolutely horrible to release music exclusively for one platform, especially if this is Amazon. I would never throw money at this, and IMHO no one should. This fucked up trends have to be boycotted so that fucking artist managers learns how to do their job decently. 

This sucks.  

Ps: fuck Scott Nagelberg. 

I agree with this so much. He should just upload it on Soundcloud. I'm boycotting Amazon and won't change that now, even for Billie.

8 minutes ago, Little Boy Named Booze said:

I'm not paying $10 for a song lol

It says 1.26€ in my country🤔

[nopride84]

3 hours ago, HAPPY ROOTING UNICORN said:

As as I said in the other thread, fuck Amazon and leak the shit out of this with no regret  

Jokes apart I think it’s absolutely horrible to release music exclusively for one platform, especially if this is Amazon. I would never throw money at this, and IMHO no one should. This fucked up trends have to be boycotted so that fucking artist managers learns how to do their job decently. 

This sucks.  

Ps: fuck Scott Nagelberg. 

i can give you the 1.29 if you want damn

[Little Boy Named Booze]

15 minutes ago, Thatsername said:

It says 1.26€ in my country🤔

oh it's $10 CAD to be a member of Amazon Music. My bad.

[HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN]

19 minutes ago, nopride84 said:

i can give you the 1.29 if you want damn

I have to say that Amazon Music is not available in my country, so opening the link I can only see a (unavailable) option to stream the song subscribing to Amazon Music. Din’t know that there was the option to buy and own the track. 

That said:  

1) Amazon Music is not available in quite a lot of countries, and this already tells you how excluding this kind of marketing choices are. I can’t listen to the song legally at the moment, for example.

2) It doesn’t change the fact that they are forcing people to use a specific channel to listen to a song, even tho giving the possibility to own it is slightly better then forcing your fans to subscribe to one specific platform

3) This is the incarnation of the worst approach towards legal music offering. It became a paradigm to fight piracy through free music offering compensated by commercials (YT, Spotify free). It is not the first time there is an attempt to subvert this with such moves, and if this becomes a new trend it will definitely damage the music industry. Especially emerging artists that would not be able to have access to such systems and/or would suffer the most piracy. Again, I have no legal way to listen to this song right now, and anyway I would not give money to Amazon for this, which leads to 

4) Amazon is probably the worst corporation of our times, it sucks big times, it exploits workers, actively works to demolish their rights, takes advantage of a leading market position/monopoly undermining national economies, finds smart ways to avoid taxes and therefore fuck us all in every country it operates. 
I will not finance this shit, not even for Green Day or Billie Joe, I would not do it if I had the opportunity. 

[jengd]

It's 99p in UK but I agree, it'll be more widely available in lots of places soon.  It's a really great version, I am soooooo happy he's released this, I loved Reckless Eric back in the day and Billie does him proud!  👏 👏 👏

[GreenDayItaly]

I'm not sure it's a big marketing strategy to release a song exclusively for a music platform such as Amazon Music. Anyway, I LOVE this version. I keep hoping that sooner or later all the covers will be uploaded to spotify.

[pacejunkie punk]

It sucks but music will soon be like TV streaming where you have to subscribe to multiple services to watch all the shows you want.  I could see artists just being connected with particular sites 😤

[Montclare]

This is the one I've been waiting forever for! Now if only I could listen to it.

[jetsrule128]

Is this on YouTube ? 

[GreenDayItaly]

7 minutes ago, jetsrule128 said:

Is this on YouTube ? 

Not yet 😢 

[jetsrule128]

Ok

[Freezing Melons]

Wasn't "99 Revolutions" all about the 1% ?
Yea I'll wait until someone uploads it to YouTube or Spotify...

[pacejunkie punk]

Amazon is using tactics like this to try and squeeze Spotify out of the market and unfortunately Billie is helping them do it.

[Karl Karlson]

Just bought it on Amazon Music, sounds nice in good quality

[Hermione]

Just a note to please not post any download links here. If it's posted on youtube a link to the video is fine though.

[Lenny]

6 hours ago, Little Boy Named Booze said:

oh it's $10 CAD to be a member of Amazon Music. My bad.

Just another way Canada gets fucked 

4 hours ago, Hermione said:

Just a note to please not post any download links here. If it's posted on youtube a link to the video is fine though.

What if I download it on youtube and post it on Vimeo and then put that link here?

[Little Boy Named Booze]

edit: edited for a better quality. Not from me btw.

[Guest]

I too was waiting for YouTube and @Little Boy Named Booze is my hero.  

[Otis Big]

Fuck. Amazon. Dude. Very disappointing. Fuck elitists 

[DookieLukie]

I enjoyed this one.