It’s quite possible they went in to write and this is just what came out. They’re clearly influenced by this style. This style of music didnt just appeare on of their albums for the first time in their career either. This rock vibe is practically in every single side project they’ve done. It’s in Revolution Radio and The Trilogy too. It’s just never been this dominant under the Green Day name. Which is why it bothered me a lot for awhile, but I’m enjoying this album way more than I thought I would.
This is somehow worse than Dos. I was excited for this when the first single dropped, but every other song is eerily similar sonically. These are party anthems, for a 4th graders birthday. At this point, the most daring thing Green Day could do is make a raw punk record.
This blurb from BJA's recent Rolling Stones article might answer your questions: "FATHER OF ALL: I was getting deep into Motown and soul music, and trying to channel that. You have to kind of thread the needle with Green Day to make sure that all of a sudden we’re not just trying too hard to be something that we’re not. It takes a weird balance. I had the riff, and I sat down with Tré and we did a demo. I’d been listening to the first couple of Prince records. He really threads the needle on ticking every genre — he was taking funk, R&B, and old classic-rock music, and he was able to turn out this sound that is so uniquely Prince. And everything is in falsetto. I wanted to try to sing through a falsetto. I was like, “I don’t want to sound like me, necessarily.” At the same time, I was in this weird kind of depression, and that’s what the song is about. I was just struggling in life, and I think it has to do with reflecting on the current culture that we’re in. It’s hard to write songs about Trump. With American Idiot, there was a rallying cry. With Trump, it’s this toxicity that’s in our culture and we’re deeply, deeply divided to a point of paranoia that we’ve never felt before. It’s just bloody, and it’s gross. There’s a line: “We are rivals in the riot that’s inside of us.” I feel like that’s what’s happening in our culture. There’s this civil war that’s brewing. With Mike throwing the bass on top of it, it just sort of created this ultimate Green Day song. And I’ve never been more proud of a single before in my life."
The falsetto and hand claps give me some motown vibes, but yeah, that's about it. to me, this new stuff is more comparable to bands like The Hives, and all those other "The" bands that were coming out in 2006 or whatever. I'm only 4 songs into the album so far, and I'm loving it, like I assumed I would. (To be fair though, the first 3 songs are the singles I've heard a million times already haha) UPDATE: "Meet Me on the Roof" has some doo-wop/motown background vocals. So there's a little more of that influence. The guitar on this song, as well.
Right, the album is like a throwback to a sound that hasn't been in the mainstream since the 00's (and fell out of the mainstream for a reason!). Green Day themselves were doing more way interesting things at that very time lol
I guess if you weren't already a fan of this kind of stuff I can see why it would be hard to get into this new Green Day stuff. I've actually just recently gotten into The Hives and all those bands, so this is right up my alley.
I loved Rev Rad. This isn't great to me at all and is a pretty big disappointment after that which is a bummer. Ah well. Maybe they'll do something I'm more interested in next time.
The Hives are so much better than literally anything on this. I get that's the easy comparison but what an insult to the Hives lol
I mainly use The Hives as a genre comparison, not necessarily as a specific band comparison. Back in those days, every band that sounded like that was "The Hives" to me haha. Maybe The Vines are a better comparison to this new GD stuff. Actually, I'd maybe say The Ramones are a better comparison. They were a punk band very influenced by Phil Spector's music, and that shined throughout their stuff.
Don't get me wrong, this record is horrendous. Car crash shit. Old man trying to be hip bullshit. Their worst record and I think in time something that will truly stain their discography. But I'm glad they at least fucking TRIED something. At least it provokes a reaction unlike the beige trio and Rev Radio. I'd rather they tried something awful than just phoned it in.
"Junkies on a High" and "Oh Yeah" are the songs I like the least. The rest of them are fucking great. All you Scrooges are nutty bananas for not thinking this album is fun as hell. This is the first Green Day album I've actually liked this much on first listen since American Idiot.
Yeah like I’ll probably never listen to this again but it’s really not that awful. I’d still take it over the trilogy. Just seems like a pleasant enough albeit wholly insignificant addition to their catalog
My absolute favorite thing is all the people who believe that this album is basically just a quick joke to get them out of their record contract! hahaha. This is easily the most inspired the band has been in years.
This is almost exactly how I feel about it. A pleasant addition that you can throw on from time to time and be done with in a half hour. Somewhat surprised there are strong feelings towards this album in either direction.