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¡UNO! Album


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I agree that the news about Billie makes listening to the album a different experience, with some of the lyrics that much more real and poignant. That is a good point to be fair. But the article goes far beyond that into pure speculation and assumptions. It's sensationalist. And it's annoying to know that there's gonna be loads of reviews of and articles about the album that focus on this news about Billie instead of the album or try to relate everything on the album to it.

spot on.

God i'm loving this album - it's too soon to place it as one of my favourites but it's so so good. they weren't lying when they said there are no filler songs.

Stay the Night will be one of my favourite songs of all time. I also find myself singing Nuclear Family and Rusty James alot in my head. The lyrics in all 3 songs are about 100 times better than anything else released over the past 3 years (by everyone else i mean!)- how does Billie do it everytime? genius

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I got my Uno deluxe version today and so far I've listened to the album 3 times and I gotta say that I absolutely love it, it's fucking briliant! Obviously I've heard a lot of the songs before but I stayed off leaks and streams so about half the album was new for me. What strikes me as new is that it sounds pretty different to other Green Day albums, a lot of it is probably because of the new guitar sound. Several of the songs are also very much power pop as they've said. I think that this is the right way to go after 2 big rock operas, keep it a bit more simple.

Billie Joe's lyrics are great as always and the songs are very catchy, as always.

My favourite tracks are Fell For You, Nuclear Family & Loss Of Control.

The only thing I don't like about this album is that Mike's bass is (still) on too low volume or buried too deep down in the mix. I'm used to it now because ever since AI the bass on most songs are difficult to hear. Maybe it's because I play bass myself I want it to be louder but that's just how I want it.

Anyhow, if Dos & Tré will be this good then to put out a trilogy is one of the greatest ideas ever! :D (Not that I ever thought that they'd put out a trilogy that wasn't great)

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UNO!! is fucking sweet love it so much!!! there isnt one song that i dont like! love it so much!!

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With that MTV article, it's refreshing to hear a journalist say that a person shouldn't have to talk about their personal issues. Never hear that anymore. That's the one positive thing I take from that article.

Though, it does raise a good point or two - are some of the songs about Billie's "problem?"

I think, that yes you COULD garner some meaning into Billie's demons with the lyrics. The MTV article is good in exploring that. I appreciate the ideas in the article...

However, while Billie Joe certainly has always had issues, I've never tried to listen to all the albums, or even any particular song and figure out what Billie or the other guys are thinking in particular. Instead, I try to interpret them in comparison to my life. When I hear Stay the Night, I flashback to the breakdown of a relationship with a girl I was dating. When I hear FOD, I think about a best friend that I used to hate, but always hung out with because he made feel guilty about shit. And when I hear Jesus of Suburbia, I think about myself, living in an area where the people have problems, but are too apathetic to get out and do something about it and it makes me want to scream sometimes.

Now obviously, some people, like the author of the MTV article, are going to see Uno as the midlife crisis call for help from Billie. And while that may cross my mind from time to time (or whenever my jackass friends bring it up), I'm going to interpret it my way, and how the lyrics relate to me. Already, Rusty James has taken on a new meaning for me in relation to my fraternity. So I'll just end this by saying, make of it what you will. So says this English graduate and his years of interpreting literary works! Ha H

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Got the album on Friday with the free Uno t-shirt... was hesitant to listen to it cos I'm not a huge fan of "Oh Love"..

bloody hell though, I reallyyyyy like it! :dance: pleasantly surprised and I love that you can hear the others sing as well as Billie :wub:

Carpe Diem and Nuclear Family are the two that have stuck out the most for me atm. :happy:

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I love it, like a cross between Nimrod and Warning. However does anyone think Rusty James sounds a lot like Scattered?

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Talk has kinda slowed down in this thread, no doubt it will speed back up when more people buy it and listen to it

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Part one of my ¡UNO! Review

The whole thing kicks off with Nuclear Family, a fairly fast-paced romp of a song which takes the band back to it's American Idiot-era of songs, also seeming reminiscent of earlier Green Day thanks to the drum-solo opening providing a nice jumping-in point for the ¡UnoDosTre! album trilogy. As the song draws to a close, Billie Joe's growling countdown prepares the listener for what's left to come. 1 down, approximately 36 to go.

And so commences the second song; Stay the Night. Opening with an acoustic riff which gradually builds in pace over the course of about 25 seconds before it crescendos into the full-band riff of the song. And it is with this song that we see the first seeds of Green Day's direction for these albums. As Billie Joe Armstrong said in interviews during the promotional run prior to the release of these albums, sometimes he just wants to "write about fucking". And in this song he goes for it. With the first few lines of vocals we hear consisting of BJA's impulses...

"Well I ain't got much time so I'll get to the point/Do you wanna share a ride and get the fuck out of this joint?/I got an impulse so repulsive that it burns/I wanna break your heart until it makes your stomach churn"

Stay the Night maintains a steady drum beat throughout, providing a sense of uniformity, but also making it very catchy and an instant, stand-out favourite of mine on ¡UNO! in spite of the other great songs present here. All things considered, Stay the Night could almost be a love song, but the references to sex throughout make it almost too dirty to be considered a true love song. But it's good enough for me, that's for sure! One final thing to note about this song is something that will be very familiar to those who have seen Green Day perform live. Billie Joe Armstrong gets a lot of mileage out of coaxing his audiences into following his lead in a chorus of shouts of "Hey-Oh". Stay the Night takes this to the next level, actually including BJA's introductory shout of "Said Hey-Ohh" in the studio version of the song.

Next, we have Carpe Diem. Which is described in the lyrics themselves as "a battle cry". No introduction on this one, just a drum-opening and we're straight into the song. No messing around. Of course, the Latin phrase Carpe Diem means 'seize the day', and that is exactly the message behind this song as well, telling the listener to take arms and seize the day. In Carpe Diem, Billie Joe's vocals sound so intense and focused, it makes me believe that he genuinely means every word of the song, with the intensity dropping and rising in peaks and troughs, but overall the whole song sounds so sincere it's easy to overlook. This one ends on the inspiring chorus, asking "are we all too young to die?" A fitting end to a song about questioning authority and grabbing opportunity by the balls.

And with the fourth song on the album, we are again instantly pulled in by the riff, with the first line of the lyrics setting the listener up for what's to come; Let Yourself Go is an (almost) angry song about that one person, that everybody knows, who just never shuts their big mouth. The friend that bullshits and creates a false life and let's themselves loose in it, just to make them seem like a more interesting person ("It's your lie, tell it how you like/Small minds seems to think alike/Shut your mouth cos you're talking too much and I don't give a fuck anyway") and it really shows, from the vocals, that Billie Joe means it when he says he doesn't give a damn about that person's lies. Unfortunately, this song gets a tad repetitive at times, and after listening multiple times can get boring due to its extended repetition of "Let Yourself Go" as a lyric. Still well worth listening to, though.

"Someone kill the DJ/Shoot that fucker down!" Radio DJs, playing mainstream pop that panders to the masses. And Green Day are sick of it, so they give their fans one simple instruction: Shoot the fucker down. Kill the DJ is something new for Green Day; a dance song in a world of power-pop and punk. If nothing else, this is a fun song; providing the listener with an opportunity to just let their hair down and jump around for a bit - definitely one to get live crowds going. Unfortunately, as was the case with Let Yourself Go, Kill the DJ could easily be considered repetitive and dull to some, even though it provides some alternative methods of killing the DJ ("Hold him underwater till the motherfucker drowns"). Although, this song should be considered as what it is. A pastiche of modern pop music, parodying the likes of Lady Gaga through its occasional use of faux auto-tune. And whilst that is quite brilliant, and almost funny, the song is more than just a parody. It's a social commentary. The pubs and clubs and dancing rooms and whatever else: Green Day does not approve of them, describing pockets full of pills and likening the modern world to "Sodom and Gomorrah in the century of thrills". Really well-done song, but won't be liked by many Green Day fans due to how different it is from the rest of the album.

And as the first half of the album comes to a close, everything slows down with a love song. A proper one. Fell for You tells the story of a dream revealing your love for someone, and no matter how much you deny it - the love is there. BJA sings about denial, distractions and lust in this one. But it all comes back to kisses for the one he loves. Even if some sexual connotations are present within the song, it's still damn good easy listening (as easy as Green Day gets) and is a fitting break from the madness of the first half of ¡UNO!

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I feel they achieved an epic album whilst trying not to make an epic album. I hadn't felt so happy with new music as I am right now with ¡Uno! in a really long time, and I'm loving it!

I think the album is pure awesomness fron Nuclear Family to Fell For You, Loss of Control and Troublemaker are the songs that, as for now, I find as the weakest ones, and right after that, the last 4 tracks are, again, 100% Green Day excellency.

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Is the CD suppose to come in the mail or UPS for those that got the "Ultimate Box Set" with the Idiot Club membership?

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Yes, I read it. And as someone who wants to study journalism it doesn't strike me as a genuine article. Whoever wrote it doesn't seem to be enthusing their point, rather labouring it to fill an editorial quota. I really wouldn't read that much into it, no matter how horrifically inappropriate it is as an article.

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The only thing I don't like about this album is that Mike's bass is (still) on too low volume or buried too deep down in the mix. I'm used to it now because ever since AI the bass on most songs are difficult to hear. Maybe it's because I play bass myself I want it to be louder but that's just how I want it.

I totally agree on that. I'm a bass player as well, by the way. Stay the Night and Kill the DJ have great bass lines, for example, but it's just too low and vague to fully enjoy it. No wonder Mike is an generally underrated bass player.

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Admittedly, I couldn't help myself and listened to the live stream a few times before the album came out. That said, this CD is awesome. It's their older material mixed with their newer material and a bit of a brand new sound on top of that. The only song that really isn't catching me is Troublemaker, but I'm coming around to it. It's just a fun, roll down the windows and turn up the stereo kind of CD.

As for that MTV analysis - I don't know. They've been working on these albums for a while and it is pretty close to impossible to say if the lyrics are a reflection of Billie's current struggle. I completely understand what the article is saying and admit that I somewhat thought some of the same things - but at the same time, Billie has always written these kinds of lyrics. In early Green Day CDs, he talked about the difficulties in trying to adjust to becoming an adult and feelings that come with being a father and a husband. He's always talked about drinking and drugs in songs. Even more recently - he's said numerous times that American Idiot is semi-autobiographical and the characters are inspired by different sides of him. 21CB has a huge focus on "know your enemy" and in Restless Heart Syndrome, it turns out that "I am my own worst enemy."

I really don't think anything on Uno indicates that it was written as a cry for help. Not at all. In fact, there are a lot of happy, light-hearted songs on the album. And I know that people are reading into Green Day trying to loosen up as them (or Billie) having some kind of mid-life crisis. Which he may in fact be dealing with, I don't know - but I really think them making a more easygoing record instead of a political one is an instance of "damned if they do, damned if they don't." People kept begging for "Old Green Day," and now that they have it, they're saying that it's a sign of a mid-life crisis and that 40 year old men shouldn't write these kinds of songs when they've been making more serious albums the past few years. They can't win. Had they written a more political album again people would keep barking on about the "sell-out" debate, complain that they're too serious and would blame Billie's substance abuse problem on him needing to chill out and stop writing about such heavy topics.

I mean, he's a great writer and obviously he's going to write about his thoughts and feelings. That's what every writer does. As a writer myself, I feel the need to point out that writers often talk about the more difficult parts of their life than the happy parts. It's cathartic and usually makes for a much more passionate piece than just writing about how much you love the summer or something, lol. So of course he talks about his personal struggles in his music. He's an artist. Trying to analyze what specific lyrics point to what is going on right now, or if any lyrics point to it at all, is kind of pointless. We need to try our best to separate two important things that are going on right now: 1) Billie getting better and 2) Enjoying this fantastic new album that the guys are proud of.

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Anyone have the clean version of this? Or is it only available in the US?

who would actually buy a clean version by choice (maybee accidentally)? The Clean version of Kill the DJ is somehow ridiculous in my opinnion

but I'm curious too about the clean version (especially of songs like LYG) I'll maybee listen to it some day but i'm 100% sure that its not as good as the original :P

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who would actually buy a clean version by choice (maybee accidentally)? The Clean version of Kill the DJ is somehow ridiculous in my opinnion

To answer your condescending question: I would. I have my reasons.

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who would actually buy a clean version by choice (maybee accidentally)? The Clean version of Kill the DJ is somehow ridiculous in my opinnion

but I'm curious too about the clean version (especially of songs like LYG) I'll maybee listen to it some day but i'm 100% sure that its not as good as the original :P

Maybe they'd want to listen to it on their jobs or they have kids and cant always listen to the unedited around them

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who would actually buy a clean version by choice (maybee accidentally)? The Clean version of Kill the DJ is somehow ridiculous in my opinnion

To answer your condescending question: I would. I have my reasons.

I won't be buying the clean version but I'd imagine one reason might be so you could play it if guests/familiy etc are over. You can hopefully convert anyone who hasn't really heard GD before, or at least you won't offend them by playing it.

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I didn't even see any clean versions when I went to Walmart to pick up my copy.

If u got your at wal mart you got the clean wal mart does not sell unedited music sadly

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who would actually buy a clean version by choice (maybee accidentally)? The Clean version of Kill the DJ is somehow ridiculous in my opinnion

but I'm curious too about the clean version (especially of songs like LYG) I'll maybee listen to it some day but i'm 100% sure that its not as good as the original :P

I heard the radio edit every time fuck or shit comes up, it's a weird guitar whirl instead of the word. It sounds alright, but I won't be buying a clean version.

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If u got your at wal mart you got the clean wal mart does not sell unedited music sadly

I bought mine at Walmart and I am listening to the unedited version. Trust me. :lol: Maybe it is because I am Canadian.

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I bought mine at Walmart and I am listening to the unedited version. Trust me. :lol: Maybe it is because I am Canadian.

Ahh yeah they may work differently in Canada

In US Wal Mart will not sell any unedited music at all

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