Blasphemy & Genocide: Unpopular Green Day Opinions, Part 2

[TheNimrodsPodcast]

31 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

That may be true, but he’s so damn good at it I still find the Longshot songs catchy and fun. As you say he can do it with his eyes closed and that’s something we should appreciate. 

I think this is super on point. BJ's so great at cranking out catchy melodies that sometimes it's easy to forget that even his "mediocre" stuff is better than most, particularly in the pop punk ballpark. I think that's part of what makes The Longshot so fun, it's just BJ doing what he does best with as little baggage or expectations possible. 

[pacejunkie punk]

7 minutes ago, TheNimrodsPodcast said:

I think this is super on point. BJ's so great at cranking out catchy melodies that sometimes it's easy to forget that even his "mediocre" stuff is better than most, particularly in the pop punk ballpark. I think that's part of what makes The Longshot so fun, it's just BJ doing what he does best with as little baggage or expectations possible. 

And making it look easy.  Writing a simple song that’s great is not an easy thing to do. Like he said in Broadway Idiot: “Eleanor Rigby is a simple song, but you didn’t fucking write it.” 😂

[TheNimrodsPodcast]

4 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

And making it look easy.  Writing a simple song that’s great is not an easy thing to do. Like he said in Broadway Idiot: “Eleanor Rigby is a simple song, but you didn’t fucking write it.” 😂

So true!! When you really zoom out it's pretty wild to consider that the guy has written literally hundreds of songs and I think it's fair to say MOST of them are pretty solid and catchy and very very few are "turn this off" level stinkers. Maybe that's my just my unpopular opinion for this thread though lol.

[petros]

1 hour ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Besides it being catchy, I also think he’s got some great, personal lyrics in songs like Chasing A Ghost, Happiness, Cult Hero, Soul Surrender and Turn Me Loose. Much better than most of RevRad honestly so maybe that’s an unpopular opinion I’ll throw out there. Longshot lyrics are better than RevRad. 

I don't know I couldn't even finish the damn album let alone pay attention to the lyrics. I guess it's not that hard to beat though. Revrad lyrics are ether really bad or average with some few exceptions.

[Asik]

Imagine its your last seconds, and youre given a chance to listen to one album. Mine would be either uno or tre, maybe american idiot. Whats yours?

[Beerjeezus]

That's easy  - the new one and then I'd perish making an insider post.

[petros]

On 6/3/2019 at 9:20 PM, Asik said:

Imagine its your last seconds, and youre given a chance to listen to one album. Mine would be either uno or tre, maybe american idiot. Whats yours?

What a waste of time I'd rather be dead already. 

[Lenny]

On 6/2/2019 at 10:57 AM, petros said:

Dookie is definitely worse than kerplunk and insomniac it just has better singles. 

Dos is the least bad album in the terrible trilogy. 

Longshot is hilariously generic and boring don't get the love for them at all. 

Tre and Mike have stepped up in the last two releases (revrad and trilogy) and Billie is the one screwing the band. His lyrics are mediocre and cringy except from moments of brilliance. His guitar work hasn't been special ether. On the contrary Mike's bass lines have been some of the best of his career especially in the trilogy and Tres drumming has been excellent in almost every release. Billie has always been the dynamic of the band with his guitar melodies and great poetic or in your face lyrics. So when he's so shitte even the rest of the band shinning they can't save the band. 

I would say Dookie and Kerplunk are the two most similar albums in Green Day's entire discography. With Dookie obviously having the singles like you mentioned. I don't really see Kerplunk! having any song that would get airplay however, at the time it was a huge independent album. It is also one of the big reasons why Green Day went the major label route. 

Lookout Records couldn't keep up with the demand nor did they have the resources to keep up with the demand for GD and Op Ivy. 

Kerplunk! and distribution issues were GD's reason. The songs from Dookie (the demos and live performances) were the labels reason for the offer. 

[Shtrudel]

You were talking about band names so I had to make this:

Quote

Listen, the reason I called you guys in here - Your name. "The Longshots", the "THE-Band" thing is out, okay? "THE-Offspring", "THE-Bad Religion" - these names are not cool. What's in now is numbers, okay? "Blink 182", "Sum"... I can't see you - "Sum 41", "Green Day 75". This isn't new - "Clash 79"... Rright, are you feeling me? Guys, check this out: "Longshot 1,039".

--------------------
Since I want to make this relevant to the topic, I'll recycle an unpopular opinion, cause I can't think of something new: I don't like how vocals are mixed in most albums. Hearing the isolated vocal tracks - they sound awesome, but in the final mix, the mixing guy does all he can to suck all the energy our of Billie's performance.

[Beerjeezus]

18 minutes ago, Shtrudel said:

Since I want to make this relevant to the topic, I'll recycle an unpopular opinion, cause I can't think of something new: I don't like how vocals are mixed in most albums. Hearing the isolated vocal tracks - they sound awesome, but in the final mix, the mixing guy does all he can to suck all the energy our of Billie's performance.

Agreed. The vocal mixing is the thing that's off about all their releases this decade and makes everything sound flat and mellow.

[Guest]

So I read some theories that Green Day will release Cigarettes & Valentines (probably fueled by the whole 'the album was done and now is again' comment from Matt) and it made me realize, once again, just how uninterested I am in C&V. I don't know why, I feel like I should be interested and curious about it like everyone else seems to be but I'm just not. 

[Beerjeezus]

44 minutes ago, Nightlife said:

So I read some theories that Green Day will release Cigarettes & Valentines (probably fueled by the whole 'the album was done and now is again' comment from Matt) and it made me realize, once again, just how uninterested I am in C&V. I don't know why, I feel like I should be interested and curious about it like everyone else seems to be but I'm just not. 

I don't really care either because I assume it was scrapped for a reason.

One thing that would be a real embarrassment would be if they released a throwaway album from 20 years ago and it turned out to be better than the new one.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

I don't really care either because I assume it was scraped for a reason.

Exactly. It sometimes feels like I'm wrong in not caring though since 'everyone' seems so desperate for it. I don't even like the song C&V. 

[DeJennsitized]

13 minutes ago, Nightlife said:

So I read some theories that Green Day will release Cigarettes & Valentines (probably fueled by the whole 'the album was done and now is again' comment from Matt) and it made me realize, once again, just how uninterested I am in C&V. I don't know why, I feel like I should be interested and curious about it like everyone else seems to be but I'm just not. 

I feel like we've already probably gotten a lot of material from that album, in the form of reworked later songs and when they performed the title track live. A tracklist or something would be cool but yeah, if they scrapped it for American Idiot I can't see them releasing it. 

[Beerjeezus]

21 minutes ago, Nightlife said:

Exactly. It sometimes feels like I'm wrong in not caring though since 'everyone' seems so desperate for it. I don't even like the song C&V. 

Same. It's an average song. Not bad, but I can see why they thought they could do better.

[solongfromthestars]

Cigarettes & Valentines doesn't interest me either. It was scrapped for a reason and I'm more intrigued by new material, or unheard songs they've mentioned briefly or just as "we recorded 80 songs we didn't use." Speculation that they'll finally release it comes up in every new era but it won't happen. I guess people are obsessed because we know (or are at least led to believe ) it really exists and can't hear it, but if they chose to release it over an actual new album I'd be disappointed.

[Christian's Inferno!]

I like the song C&V but I assume that was one of the best tracks on the album, if not the best and most of the other ones have either been released, been reworked or aren't worth hearing. It would be cool to hear not just C&V songs but other unfinished or unrecorded tracks in the future but I'm not that interested in the C&V album either

[kybry13]

1039/SOSH is a bad album. I like basically none of the songs. I am going to make people VERY mad about this because many people LOVE this album but I don't get it. I was very bored when I listened to it and I kinda wished I had listened to the original, 39/Smooth because that one doesn't have 19 songs on it! Worst album by them in my opinion. Many people say that the trilogy is their worst but I actually loved the trilogy! At least I can thank 1039/SOSH for one thing... It helped me fall asleep... (That was a joke if you couldn't tell, I didn't hate it THAT much that I fell asleep while listening to it.) But seriously, I thank 1039/SOSH for that awesome Operation Ivy Knowledge cover! I love that cover! Please don't kill me.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Americanidiotsareidiots

[The Grohl]

I'm also not the biggest fan of Green Day's first two albums, but I can't say I hate them. They're not something I would listen to front to back, but each has a handful of good songs I still enjoy.

[Christian's Inferno!]

They aren't great but they're not bad. I'd give them a chance cause they have some good stuff, particularly Kerplunk. It does puzzle me when people say Kerplunk is better than Dookie though but hey, to each their own

[pacejunkie punk]

16 minutes ago, Christian's Inferno! said:

They aren't great but they're not bad. I'd give them a chance cause they have some good stuff, particularly Kerplunk. It does puzzle me when people say Kerplunk is better than Dookie though but hey, to each their own

I enjoy Kerplunk more because the songs have not been as overplayed. 

[kybry13]

I love Kerplunk! 

[Clockwise]

I just genuinely think Kerplunk has better songwriting than Dookie. Like come on, One For The Razorbacks, No One Knows, Words I Might Have Ate. I feel like those songs are light years (lol) ahead of any song on Dookie. I get why Dookie was the hit, it's a low stakes shot of punk adrenaline and it's fun as hell. But to me Kerplunk is the band proving themselves as songwriters.

[MillenniumFan]

I'm not sure I'd necessarily put Kerplunk above Dookie in terms of songwriting, since I think Dookie is just a better album all-round. That being said, I do think Kerplunk was severely let down by its production and in part, sloppier playing and lower quality recordings.

Its strong-point is definitely the songwriting itself, which was already MILES ahead of anything released previously and there are definitely some true gems on that album. But in the end, I think Dookie was their big break for a reason. Tre's playing was just that vital bit tighter, the guitars were made to sound crunchy and huge, the song-writing was further fine-tuned, but most importantly, the production (recording, mixing, mastering etc) was great and gave it the last boost it needed. 

 

[Lenny]

1 hour ago, Clockwise said:

I just genuinely think Kerplunk has better songwriting than Dookie. Like come on, One For The Razorbacks, No One Knows, Words I Might Have Ate. I feel like those songs are light years (lol) ahead of any song on Dookie. I get why Dookie was the hit, it's a low stakes shot of punk adrenaline and it's fun as hell. But to me Kerplunk is the band proving themselves as songwriters.

 

1 hour ago, MillenniumFan said:

I'm not sure I'd necessarily put Kerplunk above Dookie in terms of songwriting, since I think Dookie is just a better album all-round. That being said, I do think Kerplunk was severely let down by its production and in part, sloppier playing and lower quality recordings.

Its strong-point is definitely the songwriting itself, which was already MILES ahead of anything released previously and there are definitely some true gems on that album. But in the end, I think Dookie was their big break for a reason. Tre's playing was just that vital bit tighter, the guitars were made to sound crunchy and huge, the song-writing was further fine-tuned, but most importantly, the production (recording, mixing, mastering etc) was great and gave it the last boost it needed. 

 

Just to chime in, first off we have no Dookie without Kerplunk! The album really is the first defining moment for Green Day and it seems like they had really found their identity on Kerplunk! Kerplunk! has great songwriting but it's more of a punk effort I would say. It was released independently with low cost production and there's a ton of energy on the record. If I had to compare what they were doing on the album to another band I'd probably say it's similar to The Buzzcocks. 

Dookie is different and although it's still very much a punk rock record there's still moments on the album that very much make it a big rock record too. Between '87-95 if you threw the Longview bassline at any major label rock band they'd all take it. That bassline is not something you'd get on Kerplunk!

When I Come Around is somewhat of a departure as well. It's a very unique song and while it holds rhythmic roots in punk rock it's a fusion with other styles as well. You also see some fusion with Pulling Teeth and Sassafras Roots. I would have to say both albums are Top 5 albums for me. Although I'd say Kerplunk! loaded the bases for Dookie to hit the grandslam. 

I think I may have stated on here before I really believe these two albums are the closest two albums in their discography. Like if you had to pick 2 albums that would become siblings these 2 would be the ones. Although I'd have to say after these two AI and 21cb have that dynamic as well.