Why did it take green day a short amount of time to write the trilogy?

[Anaïs.]

My opinion:

There's a reason why all forty of the songs that Billie wrote for 21CBD didn't make it to the album. Okay, two reasons. First of all, quality control, but secondly just because there would be absolutely no way to pack all of those songs into anything less than a triple album. Even without all of those songs, 21CBD was still, at that point, the most ambitious thing the band had ever recorded. Unfortunately, in their minds, there was nowhere to go but up. How to do that without a rock opera? Writing a shit-ton of songs and putting them all on—surprise—a triple album. The problem with this is that quality control just about vanishes with that decision. With 21CBD, they knew they'd be selecting and refining a set number of songs, and so they chose what they thought the best songs were and polished them to the best of their ability, and even then, there were still a couple of turds (KYE). With the Trilogy, there's such a sheer number of songs to finish that there's no time to go through an intensive quality-control process, even if you factor in the songs that had already been written at this point. Also because of this massive number of songs, Billie really couldn't pour as much heart and emotion into his work as usual because there was so damn much of it that he had to complete. Compare the sheer vitriol and rage in "East Jesus Nowhere" to pretty much anything on the Trilogy, and there's no comparison. Compare the subtle social commentary in "Minority" to "99 Revolutions"—again, no comparison. This is also probably why so many of the Trilogy's songs have choruses of just one line over and over again: Billie didn't have time to think of anything else. If they had scaled the whole thing down into a double album, and taken maybe a year longer to work on songwriting, it could've been much better, but I don't think they wanted to do that for two reasons: first of all, American Idiot and 21CBD are already pretty much double albums in terms of length; secondly, they didn't want to put the fans through the five-year wait that they had for 21CBD.

And, of course, compared to its predecessor, the Trilogy is pretty stripped down. Tre has more going on, but there's still nothing that compares to the sweeping strings or layers of sound effects on 21CBD. Fewer recording sessions for orchestras means less recording time.

[Westside Highway]

I remember reading somewhere, in an interview, that Billie wrote over 70 songs during the 21CB time. Also many of the songs from the trilogy were probably around much earlier, at least in early forms. Also Green Day is insanely talented so they can write quickly

[Anaïs.]

I remember reading somewhere, in an interview, that Billie wrote over 70 songs during the 21CB time. Also many of the songs from the trilogy were probably around much earlier, at least in early forms. Also Green Day is insanely talented so they can write quickly

Evidently not, though—again, look at the quality of the lyrics of the Trilogy compared to previous albums. They were clearly rushing the whole thing. And again, my point with 21CBD is they wrote a huge number of songs, but then did the smart thing and trashed most of them and picked a select group to really put their best into. For the Trilogy, they just went "Fuck it" and threw everything in.

[The Disappearing Boy]

Partly to do with some of the trilogy songs being written a while before they were released. But also they said at the time that writing the trilogy was the mos creative time of their career.

Also worth mentioning American Idiot. Considering that they were writing C&V in 2003, stopped, wrote Money Money 2020 in 2003 and were playing American Idiot songs by July 04, AI must have been written fairly quickly.

[Anaïs.]

Partly to do with some of the trilogy songs being written a while before they were released. But also they said at the time that writing the trilogy was the mos creative time of their career.

Also worth mentioning American Idiot. Considering that they were writing C&V in 2003, stopped, wrote Money Money 2020 in 2003 and were playing American Idiot songs by July 04, AI must have been written fairly quickly.

They also said that "99 Revolutions" is one of the best songs they've done.

I don't know about that one; the germ of the idea for AI was clearly around for a while (see Sarcasm's post).

[Virtue]

Am I the only one who liked the trilogy?...

Plus..even if I did hate it..I'd prefer to have a trilogy with as many songs as possible good and bad..as to just one album with the best songs from the trilogy..

I personally would love to hear everything Green Day makes..whether it be their strong stuff or bad..As some people tend to complain why

they didn't put Dreamcatcher,Oh Girl,State of Shock,Gabriella ect. on the trilogy. Imagine if they only released one album..people would be crying things like "I wish they would've put Nuclear Family on there! It sounds good!" or

"I would've loved to hear Nightlife!"

Anyhow..There are a lot of songs on that trilogy that is not new..

[Guest]

It's like people have never heard of b-sides jesus christ.

[musso_kn]

Honestly? I reckon probably because they wanted to prove they weren't the pretentious gits people (wrongly) accused them of being when they took so long to release 21CB. To show they could knock out tonnes out 'carefree' (albeit vacuous) songs just like 'old times'.

[Guest]

Because the trilogy is a load of wank that's why.

[WhiteTim]

I like the trilogy and 21st

The lyrics on the trilogy is no where near as bad as the lyrics on 95% that's on 1039...

[Idlewild.]

It's pretty easy to get piss drunk and write tacky teen pop songs with ~5 unique words per song.

[Lost and Found]

Its actually quite sad that this forum has been reduced to Miley Cyrus Trolls and other fans hating on Green Day's music. Come on everyone, this time last year we were all ecstatic for Uno!

[Sarcasm]

Its actually quite sad that this forum has been reduced to Miley Cyrus Trolls and other fans hating on Green Day's music. Come on everyone, this time last year we were all ecstatic for Uno!

isn't it more sad that you actually are bothered by trolls?

[Clockwise]

This is ridic.

It took a short amount of time because inspiration struck.

Also, the trilogy is my favorite thing Green Day has ever done. Bam.

[Punkfreak1414]

What songs do guys you think we're written in one era of a album but wasnt released until future albums? (For example drama queen was written for 21CBD but ended up in the trilogy)

You guys *

[boringdays]

come at me bro

I just don't get why you'd take you're nick after trilogy material and say it's shit. Not to mention Nightlife and Lady Cobra were two of the weaker tracks.

What songs do guys you think we're written in one era of a album but wasnt released until future albums? (For example drama queen was written for 21CBD but ended up in the trilogy)

You guys *

Lot's, Time of Your Life's the best example. It was a b-side on Dookie. JAR isn't so bad but it was in the Dookie demo's and later released on a soundtrack between that and Insomniac. Billie's always been good about wanting their albums to have sort of a cohesive feel, which is why Do Da Da got dropped off Insomniac. Because it was too upbeat compared to the darker Insomniac.

isn't it more sad that you actually are bothered by trolls?

It's really not, as a more casual reader of these forums, all the Miley Cirus and trolls is pretty damn off putting. I guess it's because I'm more of a Green Day fan then a fan of this site/community. But I kinda just come here for the actual topics.

[UnoDosTreCuatro]

They had said that they were doing a watered down rock approch to these albums. This kinda gave them a formula to make alot of songs (besides more experimental tracks). This, along with songs written before, sped up the process.

[Spike]

Lot's, Time of Your Life's the best example. It was a b-side on Dookie. JAR isn't so bad but it was in the Dookie demo's and later released on a soundtrack between that and Insomniac. Billie's always been good about wanting their albums to have sort of a cohesive feel, which is why Do Da Da got dropped off Insomniac. Because it was too upbeat compared to the darker Insomniac.

Just to add to this, Time Of Your Life was written in like 1989/90, so it's even older than that! Song's been around a looooong time.

[AlissaGoesRAWR]

Yeah, I don't think the trilogy necessarily took a shorter amount of time to write than 21 CB just because there was less time in-between the records. Writing isn't something that you're necessarily doing 24/7, whether it's songs, a book, or whatever. Something inspires you, you write a bit, you get writer's block, you stop, etc. You write in snippets. Working in tours, promotions, album artwork, etc. and also having a life means that they're probably not writing nearly as much as you'd expect. Plus, there were side projects in-between AI and 21 CB too.

I don't think there's necessarily one specific reason they put out the records in less time either. They just felt it was time and they did it. Not really worth overanalyzing.

And to comment on the shit storm that spewed on here earlier today — thanks for the lulz.

[Jollyroger118]

Really I think they've been working on trilogy-like songs since at least 2009 as they played Dreamcatcher and Stay he Night in 2010 (though Billie did say Stay The Night was the first trilogy song he wrote, if anyone has that interview I'd appreciate it !) But 2-3 years is more than enough time for Billie to write 37 songs however the band putting music to them and putting the whole thing together was probably a lot of work and I think they announced it too early and were just to excited so they ended up rushing it. Looking at it "in the moment" though I see how they made the mistake of saying it was the "most creative time of their lives" but the lyrics are the biggest hindrance. I think musically the trilogy is some of the best ever by the band

[naliuj]

They don't just go into the studio directly after finishing an album. They do stuff like touring, the AI musical probably had them occupied for a while, and they probably wrote a bunch of things before the idea for the trilogy even came up.

[foxboro]

Walk Away and Carpe Diem was ment to be on C&V (correct me if i'm wrong), and Drama Queen was written around 21st CB era.

Carpe Diem was actually written like 2-3 years ago. Billie joe said on twitter they had a new song, Carpe Diem

[Sylend]

I'm playing in a band and writing songs myself.

Reasons why is was fast:

1) Creating songs like the trilogy songs is easy. most of them are "intro, verse, pre chorus, chorus, verse, pre chorus, chorus, solo, chorus, outro" ... so no creative progress here.

2) they are in the business for a long tme and they just know how to write a song quick. even I could write an whole album in like 3 month und another 3 month to learn how to play it with the band. The songs wouldnt be special in any way but they would be there

3) 21th breakdown and AI have more complexe songs. Longer songs, with different parts and different melodys. to write a song like that take the same amount like writing 5 shitty ones.

Take a look at 21th century breakdown (the song) and think about how you come up with that. its not a mirracle or something but it takes much more time then a song like troublemaker.

4) many songs from the trilogy are rip off songs from..... the trilogy. 99 revolutions and lazy bones... cant even tell which one I'm listening to until the guitar starts to play. troublemaker and fuck time? same intro too. take a look at stay the night and 8th ave serenade. they use the same chords even in the intro. its like taking the chords from welcome to paradise and play them backwards... wait... that would be ramones blitzkrieg bop...

let me get into this... when you write a song, you are looking for matching chords that sound good together. if you just take all the chords from a song you already wrote and rearrange them you can wite new songs in hours.

5) a lot of the good trilogy song are old songs. like carpe diem and stuff. imagine what the unreleased songs are like. maybe just alot of copies of other trilogy songs

well...so much for now

[Guest]

Well, I think my username is a bit more creative than "Whatsernamexx100," "ILURVBILLIEJOE," "xtraordinarygrl93," and usernames of that caliber so yeah

Also idk why you think people who aren't trilogy enthusiasts are trolls. I genuinely do not think the Trilogy is that great. There are some great songs on it, yes, but as a whole the lyrics are uninspired, a lot of the songs are skip-worthy (Little Boy Named Train/99% of Dos, anyone?) or ridiculously obvious rip-offs of other GD/FBHT songs, and as I said earlier (an assertion which so far has gone unchallenged), it by and large feels like filler. It's like they wanted to shake things up, but they didn't want to go to the effort of writing really great music. So they just dumped a ton of songs into these three albums and said "Voila, we're doing something new and different guys!"

I appreciate the work they put into the albums, sure, but I'm not going to sit around saying it's the greatest thing they've ever done, because it's not.

Anyway, to tie this back into the discussion at hand (and to flesh out my original comment on this whole thing), I think the reason we had such a short wait on the trilogy is simply because the quality of the work on the Trilogy is lower than the quality of most other albums Green Day has produced.

This is basically my exact opinion on the Trilogy, except with less swearwords

[Sylend]

wrong button!