Dookie Insomniac Nimrod Kerplunk Warning American Idiot 21st Century Breakdown Tre Uno Dos Revolution Radio
Idiot by a huge margin, for me. One of those bands where I love one album so much that it kind of diminishes how I feel about the others.
American Idiot for mine. Followed by Warning. Then Dookie. I was absolutely obsessed with International Superhits before I became a real album listener. And my family didn't have the internet so I thought the band must have been finished if they had a greatest hits album out. When I saw the video for American Idiot it blew my mind. My favourite band was back and as good as ever, but seemingly more important than before. Then the album hit me like no other. I can see how someone who was used to nine-minute tracks and narrative arcs would be less impressed, but the record exposed me to all those possibilities. I don't listen to it a lot anymore but when the mood is right it still kills me. My favourite album of all time and the reason I'm on this site today.
I've always found Nimrod to be really underrated. One of their most fun and diverse albums in my books.
Love AI but I'm old and for the most part older Green Day is too special to me lol Nimrod Dookie Warning American Idiot Insomniac Kerplunk Revolution Radio 21st Century Breakdown Trilogy
Not surprised by all the love for it but except for the title track, most of American Idiot was pretty weak/disappointing for me compared to the albums before it.
My favorite band of all time, every time I try to rank their albums it’s different (besides #1 which is my favorite album ever) Some of them are also probably controversial American Idiot Warning Nimrod 21stCBD Dookie Kerplunk Revolution Radio Insomniac Uno Dos Tre 39/Smooth
American Idiot got me into "punk" music and I haven't looked back since. I like Dookie more tho lol. Glad to see the Warning love that one is super solid. Dookie American Idiot Warning Nimord Insomniac Kerplunk 21st Century Breakdown Revolution Radio Uno!/Dos!/Tre!
It's crazy to me that there are Green Day fans that don't like American Idiot. For me, it's such a clear level-up in every single conceivable way.
A while back, I dated someone who was a massive Green Day fan prior to AI coming out, and she told me when it did, she was put off by the band’s shift from making slacker punk for 10+ years to wearing black & eyeliner and making political rock operas. She felt the songs themselves were good in a vacuum, but Green Day no longer resembled the band she became a fan of in the first place & seemed to be trend hopping after Warning put their career in a slump. I imagine a lot of fans are in a similar boat where they got hooked on pre-Idiot Green Day, and what they found special about that iteration just didn’t quite carry over to the next era for them.
I'm sure that's the case, but like...Dookie was maybe the third album I ever heard in full, and I love it, and I still think every aspect of the songwriting on Idiot is just on another level. Also, the entire "they sold out" narrative always seemed extremely disingenuous to me, when that band had massive, massive pop hits throughout the 90s and also wrote the all-time "sappy graduation song." And American Idiot being considered "trend-hopping" is also bizarre to me. There was nothing like that on rock radio at the time, and there's been very little like it since.
The trend-hopping grievance was solely persona related, I’m sure. There wasn’t any claiming Green Day was trying to make their music sound like another band, from what I remember. I agree that would be weird.
At the risk of having egg on my face, I revisited the album today and it's a lot better than I remembered, Tbh I got pretty burnt out on it when it first came out and was literally everywhere, which is probably why I had such a bad taste in my mouth with it. My bad.
It’s always been Nimrod or Warning for me. But I gotta with Nimrod. International Superhits is one of the best greatest hits albums of all time.