and i'm sympathetic to how you feel because i think a lot of the turns of phrase on insomniac are pretty clever but i generally don't get much of anything from his lyrics. the terrible way the lyrics scan on "american idiot" still bothers me, 15 years later
Ya I wouldnt hold it against anybody for thinking he’s a bad writer and I dunno if I totally disagree, but as I get older I find myself appreciating how much empathy and emotion he wrings outta familiar language. Maybe Paul Westerberg would be an example of someone who does a similar thing better? There are other writers like Ron Mael from Sparks who Im like wtfffff how did u come with something so clever, but i dont have as much emotional response to lyrics like that. except maybe angst in my pants.
I enjoyed BJA's lyrics up to AI. I thought he did a good job of balancing the goofiness with the serious. Then they just kind of fell off a cliff.
Almost had a coronary reading those "Macy's Day Parade" takes, one of their first non-singles I remember grabbing me
Some of the takes in this thread are real stinky! My own not included. Have to say I think Billie is a great lyricist and the trilogy sounds phenomenal. I love how you can hear every instrument in crystal clarity. Is it appropriate for every song? Not really, but I still dig it.
ok i think my opinion upthread was a little strong, so for the record i agree with the "bja: pretty ok lyricist until american idiot" take
well, fwiw, I had no idea until just now, and had no exposure to it outside of listening to the full album lol
My official stance on Green Day is I wouldn't really argue with any ranking of their albums so long as the trilogy is at the bottom and American Idiot is #1
Yeah but they took three years because they are old and rich and wanted a break from Green Day. And they are promoting it heavily because they are rich and have a big promo budget, with the aim of selling more concert tickets. To become even more rich.
Macy's Day Parade is absolutely phenomenal The trilogy sounds gutless Lyrics peaked at Insomniac, songwriting creativity peaked with Warning, but American Idiot is not a significant drop-off and in fact contains some of their best lyrics and is overall their best album and one of the best albums of all time
Tre is definitely my favourite out of the trilogy. It has some great songs and even the worst songs aren’t nowhere as bad compared to the worst songs on Uno and Dos in comparison.
I think 21CBD has some great lyrics too, the trilogy is where they really take a nosedive, though I still think there are some really well written songs on there and Rev Rad (and this album even, Oh Yeah, Father of All and Junkies on a High have pretty decent lyrics off the top of my head) And yeah I'm way too biased towards this band to ever call any of their work straight up bad, I went through the whole discography again leading up to this album and still enjoyed all of it immensely
I think I was born a few years too late to really appreciate older Green Day (outside of the singles), but there's some stuff I don't mind.
Someone (pretty sure it was my friend’s “cooler older sister” lol) gave me to Dookie very shortly after I actively started listening music so that was my in