Father of all Motherfuckers - What are your thoughts on the new album?

[Christian's Inferno!]

9 minutes ago, BillieMyLove said:

But I would add to this, think about the FOAM release. Think about the months of buildup and promotion for it. Think about how Green Day were on every talk show and late night show playing their new music. Think about the AMA and MTV performances. None of that is how legacy bands behave nor how the media treats them. FOAM peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 200 and at #1 for rock albums. All that shows they are very much still an active band and lots of people, not just superfans, want to hear their new music. Yes it is a little strange that they haven't played any of the FOAM songs on this tour, but the truth is all the album promotion stopped when the world shut down. It would be a little silly to try to promote an album that came out a year and a half ago and that everyone in the mainstream has largely forgotten about by now. It's not like Weezer, who just released Van Weezer two months ago and have already announced four albums for next year. Green Day's best bet going forward is probably just to release new music and tour in support of that in the near future.

Holy shit Weezer are releasing 4 albums??

Let's see how that works out for them... My guess is not well.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

Holy shit Weezer are releasing 4 albums??

Let's see how that works out for them... My guess is not well.

You hadn't heard? It's some kind of "seasons" thing, an album for each season. I guess we will see how it comes out, but I guess they could be spreading themselves too thin.

[Otis Big]

4 hours ago, The Grohl said:

I don't care what people think

This album still slaps

 

 

 

For sure. 
Fire, Ready, Aim - great

Meet Me on the Roof - great

Stab You in the Heart - great

Sugar Youth - great

i can get down with every song but Oh Yeah.. that one sucks in my opinion. 

[The Grohl]

8 minutes ago, Otis Big said:

For sure. 
Fire, Ready, Aim - great

Meet Me on the Roof - great

Stab You in the Heart - great

Sugar Youth - great

i can get down with every song but Oh Yeah.. that one sucks in my opinion. 

I actually like Oh Yeah. It's my favorite FOAM single. Not the best on the album but still fun.

[That Dude]

Let's talk FOAM in 2023! 

 

[BratReject23]

Best album ever 

[Christian's Inferno!]

Sorry, I just don't enjoy this one. Outside of Graffitia & Stab You in the Heart, I don't really enjoy any of the other tracks that much. Everything after Teenage Teenager is ok but the first half is just straight up bad. Teenage Teenager is atrocious. Oh Yeah bores me to death. FRA is just KYE done badly and the title track is a good instrumental track ruined by falsetto

Honestly think Sugar Youth is overrated at this point too. Everyone seems to love it just cause it's the track that most resembles a classic Green Day song. But it's kind of uninteresting. It's ok, one of the best songs here, but I don't understand why a lot of people seem to consider it the best song since 21CB, or even since AI in some cases. Like, really? Put it on any good album and it's probably gonna be the worst song on it. Definitely would be the case if it were on Dookie, AI or 21CB imo

[The Grohl]

I still like the album but admittedly it's not one I revisit a whole lot. But when songs like TTMAC or MMOT come up in my shuffle I'm always like these songs slap!! And I have the unpopular opinion that Oh Yeah is good! It was one of my favorite singles. Not their best but I like it.

[Montclare]

I liked it at first listen and still like it.  Would I put it in the top half of their discography? No, but I still listen to tracks off of it regularly. I've said it a million times, but I still want to hear one of Billie's bands play TTMAC live.

And I love IWATT. 

[JDA]

To this day I still don't understand all the negative comments on this forum regarding this album! Comments such as 'Poor Production', 'terrible mixing', 'immature lyrics', 'songs are too short', 'half-baked concept'  and 'Butch Walker ruined it' make me scratch my head with confusion!  I LOVE this album, and it has been on steady rotation for the last 3 years.  I can listen to this album from front to back. The only song I routinely skip is Junkies on a High (which is still pretty good) .    

For me, the production and mixing is executed very well. The guitar tones are probably the best they've been. Billie seems to really have found something that is somewhat of his new style. The mix is amazing when you listen on headphones.. its a trip.  

This album, combined with the Trilogy are probably 90% of the Green Day I listen to now, and thats coming from a fan of 30 years!

 

On a side note... Look Ma, No Brains is easily a trilogy/Foam style song.. everything from the Mix, Lyrics and guitar Tone.   So I'm looking forward to seeing more of this style in the upcoming album!

 

[Stewe]

I still like it to this day, even if I think about the hard pandemic years when I listen.

But it's a good album 

[Clockwise]

11 minutes ago, JDA said:

To this day I still don't understand all the negative comments on this forum regarding this album! Comments such as 'Poor Production', 'terrible mixing', 'immature lyrics', 'songs are too short', 'half-baked concept'  and 'Butch Walker ruined it' make me scratch my head with confusion!  I LOVE this album, and it has been on steady rotation for the last 3 years.  I can listen to this album from front to back. The only song I routinely skip is Junkies on a High (which is still pretty good) .    

For me, the production and mixing is executed very well. The guitar tones are probably the best they've been. Billie seems to really have found something that is somewhat of his new style. The mix is amazing when you listen on headphones.. its a trip.  

This album, combined with the Trilogy are probably 90% of the Green Day I listen to now, and thats coming from a fan of 30 years!

 

On a side note... Look Ma, No Brains is easily a trilogy/Foam style song.. everything from the Mix, Lyrics and guitar Tone.   So I'm looking forward to seeing more of this style in the upcoming album!

 

I agree with you completely. It has always seemed to me that once a certain narrative is set, a majority of the fanbase just rolls with it even if it doesn't make much sense. I've seen this with both the trilogy and FOAM now. That's not to say that none of the criticism is legitimate, but it just feels like the same shit repeated over and over again with the same buzzwords thrown at you, and people can't really expand on their feelings beyond that most of the time.

[devilskind92]

I still think it's an extremely fun album. Not as memorable as most of their stuff, but I love listening to this record when I'm getting ready to go out on a Friday or Saturday night. It's just fun and full of energy. Makes me wanna go party hard. Same goes for the Trilogy, to be honest.

But yeah, when I want to actually stop and listen to great music, this ain't it.

Except for Graffitia. That's a fucking gem of a song right there.

[dudley dawson]

Worst GD album by far. But still some decent stuff here (mainly Sugar Youth).

[jengd]

It’s so interesting how people’s opinions differ.  If there is a song that doesn’t fit on FOAM to me it’s Graffitia.  It’s more standard Green Day to me, there was nothing new in it.  It’s a decent song and I do like it, just doesn’t fit there.  I too like FOAM, I play it when working in the house and in the gym.

[pcj]

Whether you like or dislike FOAM, it was the band's choice, Billie Joe wrote the music and lyrics.

Maybe he needed to make FOAM to be able to move forward to the next progressive step, in his musical development and direction.

Could it be considered therefore that FOAM had to happen, so that we get Saviors today?

[devilskind92]

34 minutes ago, jengd said:

It’s so interesting how people’s opinions differ.  If there is a song that doesn’t fit on FOAM to me it’s Graffitia.  It’s more standard Green Day to me, there was nothing new in it.  It’s a decent song and I do like it, just doesn’t fit there.  I too like FOAM, I play it when working in the house and in the gym.

Graffitia definitely feels different from the rest of FOAM, that's for sure. I'd say it still fits, but just barely and mainly because it's a closer, so it's allowed to take a different turn. But I do think Deal With the Devil would've been a better fit. Should've been part of the album.
 

Quote

Whether you like or dislike FOAM, it was the band's choice, Billie Joe wrote the music and lyrics.

Maybe he needed to make FOAM to be able to move forward to the next progressive step, in his musical development and direction.

Could it be considered therefore that FOAM had to happen, so that we get Saviors today?

Which is weird because to me Saviors feels more like an evolution of RevRad so far. It's almost like FOAM didn't exist between these two. But we'll see.

Edited November 6, 2023 by devilskind92

[CherryBombs&Gasoline]

I do not think that the album was a troll or a middle finger to the record label. I’m sure that this was the music the band wanted to make at the time, and I respect that. They must have known that this won’t become a critical or commercial success. They’re professionals, they know how this game works. But while I respect their creative decisions, I still believe that the criticism they faced was valid. Is this the worst rock album ever? Of course not. Did it deserve the hate it got from some critics and listeners? Probably not. Still, I just don’t think it’s a good album and in my opinion, it’s easily Green Day‘s worst record. There are some songs that I occasionally come back to (Graffitia, Sugar Youth) but other than that, I just feel no urge to listen to the entire record. In fact, I lost interest in the album a few months after it’s release. I just think the band can do so much better, especially lyrically. 

[Red Lights Flash]

5 minutes ago, CherryBombs&Gasoline said:

I do not think that the album was a troll or a middle finger to the record label. I’m sure that this was the music the band wanted to make at the time, and I respect that. They must have known that this won’t become a critical or commercial success. They’re professionals, they know how this game works. But while I respect their creative decisions, I still believe that the criticism they faced was valid. Is this the worst rock album ever? Of course not. Did it deserve the hate it got from some critics and listeners? Probably not. Still, I just don’t think it’s a good album and in my opinion, it’s easily Green Day‘s worst record. There are some songs that I occasionally come back to (Graffitia, Sugar Youth) but other than that, I just feel no urge to listen to the entire record. In fact, I lost interest in the album a few months after it’s release. I just think the band can do so much better, especially lyrically. 

Exactly. I do sometimes wonder whether they knew that it wasn't at all one of their best records, given that they didn't even bother playing any of it live. The interviews surrounding its release were bizarre as well. Furthermore, there's Mike's recent comment that the idea behind Saviors is that "a tour lasts a summer, a good album lasts forever". I wonder if that means that perhaps the whole idea of FOAMF was to just rush an album out to ramp up publicity for the Hella Mega tour.

[Christian's Inferno!]

3 minutes ago, Red Lights Flash said:

Exactly. I do sometimes wonder whether they knew that it wasn't at all one of their best records, given that they didn't even bother playing any of it live. The interviews surrounding its release were bizarre as well. Furthermore, there's Mike's recent comment that the idea behind Saviors is that "a tour lasts a summer, a good album lasts forever". I wonder if that means that perhaps the whole idea of FOAMF was to just rush an album out to ramp up publicity for the Hella Mega tour.

The reason they didn't play FOAMF live at all is because of Covid, and the fact that when they did return they had a Greatest Hits tour to do and since the album was over a year old at that point, there wasn't really the need to play new songs. But if it weren't for Covid, I'm sure they probably would've at least had a few performances of FOAMF songs during Hella Mega. The fact that they've played Father of All twice lately and Graffitia is an indicator that they do like it. It may not be their favourite album but they like it. At least Billie for sure likes it. Billie is not the kind of person to make a bad album just to screw with the label. He absolutely cares about his music too much to do that

[CherryBombs&Gasoline]

And they did a proper promotion cycle for the album. They played both Oh Yeah and the title track at multiple TV appearances. Billie even said that he believes that Father of All is their best ever single. So I’m sure they were proud of it. They way they presented themselves back then was definitely odd and honestly kind of embarrassing, but I do believe that they cared. 

[龑美優]

I'm still of the opinion that this I'd a good, fun record. It is exactly what it wanted to be & I appreciate it. Then again, I'm a lover of the trilogy & don't agree with the people that think it could have been condensed into just one album, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

Gonna jam this album now! 

[Red Lights Flash]

 

4 hours ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

The reason they didn't play FOAMF live at all is because of Covid, and the fact that when they did return they had a Greatest Hits tour to do and since the album was over a year old at that point, there wasn't really the need to play new songs. But if it weren't for Covid, I'm sure they probably would've at least had a few performances of FOAMF songs during Hella Mega. The fact that they've played Father of All twice lately and Graffitia is an indicator that they do like it. It may not be their favourite album but they like it. At least Billie for sure likes it. Billie is not the kind of person to make a bad album just to screw with the label. He absolutely cares about his music too much to do that

I see your point, but I kinda disagree that Hella Mega necessarily had to be a Greatest Hits tour. Weezer certainly played songs from their new albums. It's just that Green Day chose not to. It's a reasonable choice to make, but it's still a choice. Do songs from a new album really become irrelevant to a band and their fanbase when the album is over a year old? I don't see why they couldn't have played at least one FOAMF song on the tour. (Especially when you genuinely believe that the album contains your best single ever.)

But I suppose that this is not necessarily a FOAMF problem, but a problem with their more recent albums in general. Songs from the post-21stCB era generally don't seem to stick around in the Green Day setlist at all after the album cycle is over, even if the songs did reasonably well. Looking at you, Bang Bang.

 

[stories and songs]

My take on FOAM is that it was time for them to put out another Green Day album, but they weren’t yet in the mood to be Green Day again. We know they like to experiment with different personas and sounds in their downtime, and that’s what this felt like to me…they made a decidedly un-Green Day kind of album because they weren’t back in the Green Day mindset. I don’t believe they’d ever put out an album they didn’t genuinely stand behind, because they take pride in their work. But I do think, just based on the cover art and some of the interviews surrounding it, that they felt a bit salty about having to step back into Green Day mode perhaps before they were ready.

Personally, I think this album would be fine as a side project but just wasn’t up to standard as a Green Day album. I also was very put off by the too-unironic-for-comfort “sex, drugs, and rock n roll” theme. That’s not this band’s identity to me at all.

[devilskind92]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:37 PM, stories and songs said:

My take on FOAM is that it was time for them to put out another Green Day album, but they weren’t yet in the mood to be Green Day again. We know they like to experiment with different personas and sounds in their downtime, and that’s what this felt like to me…they made a decidedly un-Green Day kind of album because they weren’t back in the Green Day mindset. I don’t believe they’d ever put out an album they didn’t genuinely stand behind, because they take pride in their work. But I do think, just based on the cover art and some of the interviews surrounding it, that they felt a bit salty about having to step back into Green Day mode perhaps before they were ready.

That actually makes a ton of sense. It's clearly the kind of music they wanted to make at that moment, but at the same time it didn't seem like they wanted to make a Green Day album at all. Could've been Foxboro's 3rd album.

On 11/9/2023 at 12:37 PM, stories and songs said:

 I also was very put off by the too-unironic-for-comfort “sex, drugs, and rock n roll” theme. That’s not this band’s identity to me at all.

Yeah, this band's all about Sex, Drugs, and Violence!