Saviors - Album Discussion

[That Dude]

22 minutes ago, DookieLukie said:

That’s good perspective, thanks. It’s also rare for a band 30 years in to put out one of their better works, so I think that’s part of the disappointment with popularity. Still confused how Blink maintains their popularity.

I'm still trying to think if of other 90s bands with 14 albums.  Weezer is the only one I can think of.  Yeah, Blink survived their less popular periods and weren't hated on as much as Green Day for some reason. 

[Christian's Inferno!]

1 minute ago, devilskind92 said:

Remember, Blink leveraged their 'reunion' to spike their current popularity. It stirred nostalgia. In contrast, Green Day has been consistently present, dropping new material fairly regularly. This consistency means their album releases don't create a buzz among non-fans like a grand comeback would. If they had taken a hiatus or disbanded and then staged a reunion tour, I'm pretty sure they'd be huge.

We have to come to terms with the fact that the world isn't really into rock n' roll anymore, particularly from veteran bands. Popularity is often for the young artists, largely because it's the youth driving consumption. Green Day has enjoyed their moments of glory with two massive hits and now occupies a comfortable niche. Their enduring fame ensures they'll always retain a substantial following, even if they never recapture the huge successes of the 90s and 2000s. Holding out for a repeat of their past triumphs is setting ourselves up for disappointment. That ship has sailed, it ain't happening again unless there's a massive shift in the music industry somehow. But it's not within their power to make that change.

Actually I think it's really only the "veteran bands" who are getting any kind of success in terms of rock music. Saviors may not be doing as well commerically as we hoped it would, but it, along with recent albums/singles from Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Blink, Foo Fighters, Metallica, MCR etc. are really the only ones that are doing anything in terms of streaming, sales, charting positions. The only exception I can think of is Machine Gun Kelly but he's dreadful imo. And not just in terms of the music

[devilskind92]

21 minutes ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

Actually I think it's really only the "veteran bands" who are getting any kind of success in terms of rock music. Saviors may not be doing as well commerically as we hoped it would, but it, along with recent albums/singles from Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Blink, Foo Fighters, Metallica, MCR etc. are really the only ones that are doing anything in terms of streaming, sales, charting positions. The only exception I can think of is Machine Gun Kelly but he's dreadful imo. And not just in terms of the music

Oh, certainly. When it comes to the niche itself the veteran bands are more popular. But when it comes to mainstream success I think the new gen has a better shot in general.

And agreed about MGK. Was very sad to be in one of his concerts last year here in Brazil, wish I could've skipped straight to Halsey lol

[That Dude]

 

[Flashback]

In Austria Saviors only dropped from #2 to #6 in its seconds week. For comparison: FOAM dropped from #2 to #20 in its seconds week. RevRad dropped from #4 to #7.

[Red]

Well after having the album on repeat since it's release, it's time for me to leave my impressions...

Saviors is a great return to form for the band after my personal least favourite album from them (FOAM). I don't think I like the songs on Saviors enough to say it's a better album musically than Revrad, however the production more than makes up for it by making even the most average songs on this album sound like absolute masterpieces. From beginning to end this album just feels and sounds incredible to listen to.

My personal favourite tracks are TADIKM, LMNB, 1981, Goodnight Adeline, Coma City, Strange Days and Fancy Sauce. The album in general while doesn't really do much new or experimental, it definitely takes inspiration from most of the bands prior albums and as a result you get a lot of stuff that feels like a mix of the best parts of several albums, such as Coma City for example, which to me feels like the child of 21CB and Insomniac. I love that the band are utilizing key changes to make songs feel more ambitious, there's a great variety of instruments, including the return of strings and acoustic guitars playing major parts in songs before bringing in the big guitar sound for powerful and satisfying choruses. Also the bass throughout is incredible and definitely worth paying a lot of attention to, especially on a fairly high end sound system with the bass turned up a little bit more than usual. Mike goes full Dookie mode on some of these songs and as a result, these are probably some of the best and most complex bass tracks he's ever done. This is also a huge step up lyrically from anything that came out after 21CB without question. I am not even normally even a lyrics guy (It's all about the music for me), but the difference between this and the last 5 albums in that regard is absolutely huge. There's also thankfully no fade out songs here.

Overall, I'd give the album an 8/10. The only reasons I don't rate it higher is because:

• It's highly repetitious nature (several songs not only use almost identical chord progressions and melodies from older songs, but even as ones on the very same album). This is in stark contrast to AI and Revrad's songs, all of which feel much more original and fresh compared to the band's prior material.
• My favourite Green Day albums are the ones that take me on a journey and make me never want to skip past any of the tracks or it just feels wrong. My favourite 3 Green Day albums 21CB (10/10), AI (10/10) and Revrad (9/10) All feel like they have a melodic story to tell from beginning to end, whereas Saviors just feels like a disconnected collection of songs, which is fine, but just not my personal favourite way the band has done albums before.
• No multipart tracks or seamless transitions between songs, which wouldn't be fair for me to expect on every album from the band, but these kinds of songs usually end up being some of my favourites and the albums they are associated are usually moved up closer to the top of my list. 

Overall, I am really happy with this album and it's great to see our boys doing so well on the charts again. I bet a lot of kids are finally discovering them, once again proving that Green Day is a band that truly transcends generations and are easily deserving of the title of one of the all time greats.

PS: I hope Revrad one day gets an anniversary remaster with production as good as this album has, because if it did, I'd happily bump it up to a 10/10 also.

[DookieLukie]

1 hour ago, Red said:

Well after having the album on repeat since it's release, it's time for me to leave my impressions...

Saviors is a great return to form for the band after my personal least favourite album from them (FOAM). I don't think I like the songs on Saviors enough to say it's a better album musically than Revrad, however the production more than makes up for it by making even the most average songs on this album sound like absolute masterpieces. From beginning to end this album just feels and sounds incredible to listen to.

My personal favourite tracks are TADIKM, LMNB, 1981, Goodnight Adeline, Coma City, Strange Days and Fancy Sauce. The album in general while doesn't really do much new or experimental, it definitely takes inspiration from most of the bands prior albums and as a result you get a lot of stuff that feels like a mix of the best parts of several albums, such as Coma City for example, which to me feels like the child of 21CB and Insomniac. I love that the band are utilizing key changes to make songs feel more ambitious, there's a great variety of instruments, including the return of strings and acoustic guitars playing major parts in songs before bringing in the big guitar sound for powerful and satisfying choruses. Also the bass throughout is incredible and definitely worth paying a lot of attention to, especially on a fairly high end sound system with the bass turned up a little bit more than usual. Mike goes full Dookie mode on some of these songs and as a result, these are probably some of the best and most complex bass tracks he's ever done. This is also a huge step up lyrically from anything that came out after 21CB without question. I am not even normally even a lyrics guy (It's all about the music for me), but the difference between this and the last 5 albums in that regard is absolutely huge. There's also thankfully no fade out songs here.

Overall, I'd give the album an 8/10. The only reasons I don't rate it higher is because:

• It's highly repetitious nature (several songs not only use almost identical chord progressions and melodies from older songs, but even as ones on the very same album). This is in stark contrast to AI and Revrad's songs, all of which feel much more original and fresh compared to the band's prior material.
• My favourite Green Day albums are the ones that take me on a journey and make me never want to skip past any of the tracks or it just feels wrong. My favourite 3 Green Day albums 21CB (10/10), AI (10/10) and Revrad (9/10) All feel like they have a melodic story to tell from beginning to end, whereas Saviors just feels like a disconnected collection of songs, which is fine, but just not my personal favourite way the band has done albums before.
• No multipart tracks or seamless transitions between songs, which wouldn't be fair for me to expect on every album from the band, but these kinds of songs usually end up being some of my favourites and the albums they are associated are usually moved up closer to the top of my list. 

Overall, I am really happy with this album and it's great to see our boys doing so well on the charts again. I bet a lot of kids are finally discovering them, once again proving that Green Day is a band that truly transcends generations and are easily deserving of the title of one of the all time greats.

PS: I hope Revrad one day gets an anniversary remaster with production as good as this album has, because if it did, I'd happily bump it up to a 10/10 also.

I agree with them reusing old riffs (Strange Days is exactly Basket Case and has to be intentional). I disagree that the songs are disconnected. I feel they flow excellently and have a thematic thread. Also criticizing it for not having multipart songs or songs with seamless transitions seems like an odd criticism. You’d rather they force it?

[Christian's Inferno!]

23 minutes ago, Red said:

Well after having the album on repeat since it's release, it's time for me to leave my impressions...

Saviors is a great return to form for the band after my personal least favourite album from them (FOAM). I don't think I like the songs on Saviors enough to say it's a better album musically than Revrad, however the production more than makes up for it by making even the most average songs on this album sound like absolute masterpieces. From beginning to end this album just feels and sounds incredible to listen to.

My personal favourite tracks are TADIKM, LMNB, 1981, Goodnight Adeline, Coma City, Strange Days and Fancy Sauce. The album in general while doesn't really do much new or experimental, it definitely takes inspiration from most of the bands prior albums and as a result you get a lot of stuff that feels like a mix of the best parts of several albums, such as Coma City for example, which to me feels like the child of 21CB and Insomniac. I love that the band are utilizing key changes to make songs feel more ambitious, there's a great variety of instruments, including the return of strings and acoustic guitars playing major parts in songs before bringing in the big guitar sound for powerful and satisfying choruses. Also the bass throughout is incredible and definitely worth paying a lot of attention to, especially on a fairly high end sound system with the bass turned up a little bit more than usual. Mike goes full Dookie mode on some of these songs and as a result, these are probably some of the best and most complex bass tracks he's ever done. This is also a huge step up lyrically from anything that came out after 21CB without question. I am not even normally even a lyrics guy (It's all about the music for me), but the difference between this and the last 5 albums in that regard is absolutely huge. There's also thankfully no fade out songs here.

Overall, I'd give the album an 8/10. The only reasons I don't rate it higher is because:

• It's highly repetitious nature (several songs not only use almost identical chord progressions and melodies from older songs, but even as ones on the very same album). This is in stark contrast to AI and Revrad's songs, all of which feel much more original and fresh compared to the band's prior material.
• My favourite Green Day albums are the ones that take me on a journey and make me never want to skip past any of the tracks or it just feels wrong. My favourite 3 Green Day albums 21CB (10/10), AI (10/10) and Revrad (9/10) All feel like they have a melodic story to tell from beginning to end, whereas Saviors just feels like a disconnected collection of songs, which is fine, but just not my personal favourite way the band has done albums before.
• No multipart tracks or seamless transitions between songs, which wouldn't be fair for me to expect on every album from the band, but these kinds of songs usually end up being some of my favourites and the albums they are associated are usually moved up closer to the top of my list. 

Overall, I am really happy with this album and it's great to see our boys doing so well on the charts again. I bet a lot of kids are finally discovering them, once again proving that Green Day is a band that truly transcends generations and are easily deserving of the title of one of the all time greats.

PS: I hope Revrad one day gets an anniversary remaster with production as good as this album has, because if it did, I'd happily bump it up to a 10/10 also.

I think the production & lyrics on its own is enough to have Saviors match RevRad's quality. But I think the quality of the songs are also stronger on Saviors too. The guitars, drums & bass are just better on Saviors imo. I think RevRad is a light 8 whereas Saviors is either a strong 8 or light 9 out of 10 personally. The only thing I can give RevRad over Saviors is that you can argue that the tracks on RevRad are more original while some Saviors songs could be considered rip offs of previous songs. But that said, RevRad is also still very much inspired by AI/21CB era songs, even taking certain elements straight from previous songs i.e. Bang Bang using the guitar riff from St. Jimmy.

Transitions would be nice on Saviors but it's not some essential thing that's needed on a Green Day album and honestly the lack of multipart tracks doesn't bother me at all. I don't think any of the songs warrant being multi-part and the album would just seem more like a wannabe AI/21CB album if it had multi-part tracks. I don't think RevRad feels more like a "journey" or "story" than Saviors. Like yeah, Forever Now is connected with Somewhere Now and there are multiple mentions of the "radio" but I don't really get anything out of that. Saviors feels more thematically satisfying imo. The title track feels like a sort of conclusion to the themes introduced throughout the album. The political (TADIKM, Coma City, LIT20S, Strange Days), the narrator is looking for somebody to "save" them from the American Dream which is killing them. The personal (Dilemma, Look Ma No Brains etc.), the album deals with issues of addiction, depression/suicide and the narrator could be looking for somebody to save them from themself. The mention of music throughout the album (1981 being the year of MTV's creation, Corvette Summer being about Billie's love of music), Saviors can be interpreted as the saving of rock music, the narrator wishes for another explosion of rock music in the mainstream. Fancy Sauce is still not a track I'm completely sold on personally but it works as an answer to the question posed in the title track "Will somebody save us?" ending the album on a very dark note that "No, nobody's coming to save us"

[The 99th revolution]

I noticed that Saviors reuses two Paper Bullets songs: Follow You Around in Strange Days and Regretfully Yours in Father to a Son

[Cali89]

Every day I wake up with a different song from album in my head, and I love it 

[Christian's Inferno!]

2 hours ago, DookieLukie said:

I agree with them reusing old riffs (Strange Days is exactly Basket Case and has to be intentional). I disagree that the songs are disconnected. I feel they flow excellently and have a thematic thread. Also criticizing it for not having multipart songs or songs with seamless transitions seems like an odd criticism. You’d rather they force it?

The transition criticism is also weird considering RevRad doesn't really have any transitions either besides BOTW into Still Breathing which imo is a pretty shit transition. I'd prefer it to just not transition than have a bad transition

[The 99th revolution]

I don't care if there are any transitions in any album, but there are good ones like Brain Stew/Jaded.

[That Dude]

How about that Album 15 thread now?  What could possibly follow Saviors?   Might the guys need a side project to get in a new mindset.  A tubbies record, perhaps?  Pinhead?  

 

[The 99th revolution]

We need the album 15 thread that's for sure!

[jengd]

Noooooo, please not yet,

[The 99th revolution]

Alright fine let's not start GDC War 2883384984234897748365673927475869

[Christian's Inferno!]

On 2/5/2024 at 6:55 PM, Christian's Inferno! said:

The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,035,185 (+61k)
Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,018,512 (+54k)
Bobby Sox - 3,791,598 (+74k)
One Eyed Bastard - 6,052,932 (+80k)
Dilemma - 7,815,879 (+83k)
1981 - 2,067,235 (+48k)
Goodnight Adeline - 1,884,878 (+40k)
Coma City - 1,598,378 (+30k)
Corvette Summer - 1,627,906 (+32k)
Suzie Chapstick - 1,712,476 (+41k)
Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,559,570 (+32k)
Living in the '20s - 1,530,299 (+34k)
Father to a Son - 1,285,915 (+26k)
Saviors - 1,264,393 (+26k)
Fancy Sauce - 1,221,597 (+25k)

TOTAL - 51,466,753 (+686,612)

Dang, that's quite a big drop from yesterday which was already a pretty big drop from the previous day which was 1,014,022. I wonder if there's some explanation for that drop like maybe spotify updating numbers earlier today, or later yesterday

Last 2 days of spotify streams

The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,104,276 (+69k)
Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,080,104 (+62k)
Bobby Sox - 3,877,513 (+86k)
One Eyed Bastard - 6,143,045 (+90k)
Dilemma - 7,907,886 (+92k)
1981 - 2,121,848 (+55k)
Goodnight Adeline - 1,929,540 (+45k)
Coma City - 1,632,344 (+34k)
Corvette Summer - 1,664,211 (+36k)
Suzie Chapstick - 1,754,139 (+42k)
Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,593,987 (+34k)
Living in the '20s - 1,570,087 (+40k)
Father to a Son - 1,316,142 (+30k)
Saviors - 1,293,691 (+29k)
Fancy Sauce - 1,249,538 (+28k)

TOTAL - 52,238,351 (+771,598)

The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,174,697 (+70k)
Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,142,471 (+62k)
Bobby Sox - 3,962,266 (+85k)
One Eyed Bastard - 6,232,332 (+89k)
Dilemma - 8,000,212 (+92k)
1981 - 2,174,221 (+52k)
Goodnight Adeline - 1,973,455 (+44k)
Coma City - 1,665,725 (+33k)
Corvette Summer - 1,699,565 (+35k)
Suzie Chapstick - 1,796,586 (+42k)
Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,628,565 (+35k)
Living in the '20s - 1,611,278 (+41k)
Father to a Son - 1,343,415 (+27k)
Saviors - 1,322,721 (+29k)
Fancy Sauce - 1,277,907 (+28k)

TOTAL - 53,005,416 (+767,065)

[pacejunkie punk]

It’s funny how after Goodnight Adeline it’s Suzy Chapstick that has a consistent out of order bump above the others

[That Dude]

6 hours ago, pacejunkie punk said:

It’s funny how after Goodnight Adeline it’s Suzy Chapstick that has a consistent out of order bump above the others

Green Day's biggest songs are the ballads, so that kind of makes sense.   

[Verycool99]

i didn’t know where else to post this but I love this channel and it’s mixes. Crazy to here songs from a different sounding era and this one in particular sounds incredible

[Red]

18 hours ago, DookieLukie said:

I agree with them reusing old riffs (Strange Days is exactly Basket Case and has to be intentional).

I personally think it has a lot more in common with the melody of Scattered and Rusty James, so much so that you can pretty much sing the verse of Rusty James along with it and I absolutely cannot unhear the Rusty James solo starting as soon as the actual Strange Days solo starts.

18 hours ago, DookieLukie said:

Also criticizing it for not having multipart songs or songs with seamless transitions seems like an odd criticism. You’d rather they force it?

It wasn't so much a criticism of the album, just my personal take on why this one doesn't quite score as highly in my favourite albums as some of the others do. Some people might prefer albums that don't have tracks or transitions like that and rate those higher in their favourites and that's completely fine... I personally love that stuff and if an album doesn't have it, then it's just in my DNA that I am not going to love it quite as much as some of the others that do, hence why I can't score it as high as those.

[Red]

18 hours ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

I think the production & lyrics on its own is enough to have Saviors match RevRad's quality. But I think the quality of the songs are also stronger on Saviors too. The guitars, drums & bass are just better on Saviors imo. I think RevRad is a light 8 whereas Saviors is either a strong 8 or light 9 out of 10 personally. The only thing I can give RevRad over Saviors is that you can argue that the tracks on RevRad are more original while some Saviors songs could be considered rip offs of previous songs. But that said, RevRad is also still very much inspired by AI/21CB era songs, even taking certain elements straight from previous songs i.e. Bang Bang using the guitar riff from St. Jimmy.

Yeah, I respect your opinion on all of your points. I do think the instruments are produced much better, but the actual composition of Revrad songs is pretty top notch, which is extremely evident when listening to the stems. I also have to give it credit for trying out some new things that I am not sure I have even heard in music before, specifically the violin bow on the electric guitar sound (which let's face it, was pretty fucking badass). I think what hurt the album for me the most really was the loudness wars aspect and overall production quality, seriously, I tried listening to the album in my car a few days ago straight after Saviors and I was reminded immediately of how I had to keep adjusting the volume because it was either too damn loud or nowhere near loud enough (looking at you, Outlaws). Saviors is production perfection... but production alone doesn't make an album among one of the greatest things the band has ever done for me personally.

I guess if I were to raise it to a 9 for the better lyrics and production alone, the predicament for me then becomes about whether or not I think it's fair to say it's better than Dookie, Nimrod or Insomniac, because I'd give all of those an 8.5 personally and I just don't think this album quite gets there. I think even giving it the same score as those albums just kind of feels wrong to me. Here, I'll go into a little more detail on one of my previous points as to why I just don't think I can put it up there with the other records.

One thing I immediately noticed on my first listen (and I don't want to use the word "annoyed" because it's not accurate), but one thing that kind of "irked" me is that this is now the 3rd album in a row that Billie Joe sings in the Too Dumb To Die/Sugar Youth melody during a verse. Like I get it, after writing easily over a hundred and fifty songs in the same genre, it's getting harder to write stuff that doesn't sound similar to things that he's written before.. but 3 albums in a row? Then when you throw in that Bobby Sox uses the When I Come Around riff, then Goodnight Adeline uses it again, then both Dilemma and Fancy Sauce use the Give Me Novacaine and Lazy Bones riff, it all starts to kind of add up and I just can't really keep ignoring stuff like that you know?

Again, I still love this album, but I just don't think it quite deserves the soaring hights that many of the previous records reach. 8 is still a really solid score. It's 3 points above FOAM, which I give a 5, the lowest score I have ever given a Green Day album. It's above the Trilogy, all of which I give a 7 and it's on par with Warning and Kerplunk, which I also give an 8. It's just not quite as high as some of the most iconic records from the band, so I think I am going to stick with it because I think it's very fair and very generous, and again, it's just my personal opinion. If you wanna give it a 9, then by all means your personal score is a 9 and I am not going to try and take that away from you. 

Oh and on your last point about Bang Bang using the same guitar riff as St. Jimmy, I just don't really hear it. Granted, the bridge melody, the overall strumming pattern and drum style throughout the song is very similar, but think the overall song melody has more in common with Territorial Pissings by Nirvana than St. Jimmy.

18 hours ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

Transitions would be nice on Saviors but it's not some essential thing that's needed on a Green Day album and honestly the lack of multipart tracks doesn't bother me at all. I don't think any of the songs warrant being multi-part and the album would just seem more like a wannabe AI/21CB album if it had multi-part tracks. I don't think RevRad feels more like a "journey" or "story" than Saviors. Like yeah, Forever Now is connected with Somewhere Now and there are multiple mentions of the "radio" but I don't really get anything out of that. Saviors feels more thematically satisfying imo. The title track feels like a sort of conclusion to the themes introduced throughout the album. The political (TADIKM, Coma City, LIT20S, Strange Days), the narrator is looking for somebody to "save" them from the American Dream which is killing them. The personal (Dilemma, Look Ma No Brains etc.), the album deals with issues of addiction, depression/suicide and the narrator could be looking for somebody to save them from themself. The mention of music throughout the album (1981 being the year of MTV's creation, Corvette Summer being about Billie's love of music), Saviors can be interpreted as the saving of rock music, the narrator wishes for another explosion of rock music in the mainstream. Fancy Sauce is still not a track I'm completely sold on personally but it works as an answer to the question posed in the title track "Will somebody save us?" ending the album on a very dark note that "No, nobody's coming to save us"

I like this interpretation of the record, I'll definitely keep it in my mind next time I listen to it in full.

16 hours ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

The transition criticism is also weird considering RevRad doesn't really have any transitions either besides BOTW into Still Breathing which imo is a pretty shit transition. I'd prefer it to just not transition than have a bad transition

Again, it wasn't a criticism of the album. It was just something in my head I know I get a dopamine hit from and any album that does it gets bonus points. Simple as that. I always heard Forever Now as a multipart track with a seamless transition, and then considering it reprises the opening song with updated lyrics, it just did astronomically huge things for my soul, like I cannot put that kind of happiness into words but I literally cried tears of pure joy the first time I heard it. 

Hope that gives you guys a better understanding of where my head is at with my personal ranking of these albums and why some are just a tiny bit more special to me than others.

[Saviour]

I saw a Reddit post the other day asking if Saviors has a story. 

Give me strength. 

I think American Idiot has puddled some people's brains. Why can't a GD record be just a collection of songs like 99.999% of every album ever?

[Little Boy Named Booze]

Anybody still waiting for their signed CD?
I didn't received a single email since I bought it...

[That Dude]

Billie was thinking about a straight up fast paced, punk rock record.  But that would have been a bummer for a lot of people.  Then thought about Brit Pop and Power Pop,  but decided on a mixed bag, an album of variety which is great.  I don't know if this is good or bad, but Green Day kind of have to do variety on their albums now.  All britpop, all punk rock, all 60s groove thang, it wouldn't go over well.  

I guess what I'm getting at is...album 15!!!!!  What could possibly be like?