rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

 
Punk’s Promise Kept: Green Day Swing For The Fences

    Ok, I’m coming late to this. Green Day’s  ‘American Idiot’ CD has already won the Best Rock Album Grammy award, and all the knee jerk cries of ‘sellout’ that that kind of mainstream success calls forth from the ‘my punk rock can beat up yr punk rock’ brigade. I don’t care. Just saw the band performing their ‘punk rock opera’ on VH1’s Storytellers (again, can’t get much more mainstream than that, again, I don’t care) and I was floored.
    A little history:
    About 10 years ago I was celebrating my 40th birthday by playing guitar in the punkiest punk band I could find in Greely, Colorado, Six Foot Savage. 3 20 year olds and me making loud, loud noise while our singer Plungerboy screamed about cutting peoples heads off, getting sick and dipping handkerchiefs in his own vomit etc etc, all the while tripping on acid and screaming like his balls were on fire. One night at rehearsal I, trying to seem hip (something of an avocation w/me, pathetic I know, so shoot me), I mentioned that I really liked this band Green Day, who’s ‘Longview video I had seen for the 1st time that morning.
    The guys all started hemming and hawing and eventually informed me that Green Day ‘used to be cool, but are kinda lame and not really punk rock’. Plungerboy made me a tape of there earlier records ‘Kerplunk’  and the one w/a number in it’s title that I forget. I liked the tape alright, but when I finally bought ‘Dookie’ (their million selling major label debut that apparently gave birth to ‘mall core’ and the whole neo-pop-punk movement which includes bands like Blink 182, Sum 41, Good Charlotte and all the bands one’s little sister likes and are not ‘REAL’ punk, whatever that is..) it didn’t leave my car’s tape player for months. I still think it’s one of the best records of the 1990’s. No, it’s Buzzcockian rhymes and rhythms didn’t break any new ground like My Bloody Valentine or anything, but it’s voice of suburban ennui and smart ass sense of humor spoke more accurately and benevolently to, and for, a generation of displaced, marginalized teenagers than that of Saint Cobain, he of the sacred shotgun and the failure flown like a flag. Dookie was/is just plain fun to listen to. OK?
    I missed their next record ‘Insomnia’ but picked up ‘Nimrod’ and found it’s auto-tune, pitch corrected production cold and uninteresting and basically wrote Green Day off as a one CD wonder, which is, to me, a badge of punk rock honor. Get in, do it right, get out (see: Pistols, Sex). I, of course heard ‘Good Riddance’ all over the radio and thought it was a nice single. Innocuously pleasant and there’s no worse curse for a punk record than that.
    The last 10 years flew by. Can it really be that Green Day are now ‘elder statesmen’ of punk? Wow, but yes. And with ‘American Idiot’, the boys shake off all accusations of innocuous pleasantry and have produced a throw down record that digs deeper than the boredom and apathetic will to entitlement that marks most punk records (and most punk writing) as little more than whining. Billy Joe Armstrong has written a record of strength and stylistic pastiche worth of some unholy cross of John Lydon and Brian Wilson. Touching on songs as disparate as Mott the Hoople’s  ( Sigh, now THERE was a band) ‘All the Young Dudes’, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Biko’ and the Sex Pistols’ ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ in it’s entirety, Green Day have carved out a monumental work of brute force with a melodic heart and an unflinching brain that is more than just a rant about living in a world one didn’t make. Billy Joe‘s songwriting has taken on a new stature w/this record by virtue of his daring to be great, a punk trait not seen since Billy Corgan shaved his head in Smashing Pumpkins, although he wound up continuing to whine, just with much, much bigger guitars (and when that failed, keyboards, and then guitars again and then… and then…).
    With  ‘American Idiot”, Armstrong takes on (among other things) the failure of our political system to address the children of America, who have been left to their own devices, armed only with the neglect of a consumer culture that sees them as little more than profit bases.  With songs like ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ and ‘Homecoming” punk grows up. Armstrong takes that giant and essential step past simply complaining into the realm of self responsibility. And it rocks. And rolls. And swings. And sways. And swoons. It can make you play air guitar w/tears in yr eyes.
    If you don’t already own it buy it today. I know I’m going to.
    Sid, you have been avenged. Sleep easy, old man.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 16:52 | link | comments (5)

Comments:

#1  04 April 2005 - 16:55

 

I think i just might buy it!

moonglow

#2  04 April 2005 - 17:47

 

A, My 12 year old, is a Green Day adorer. This essay makes me happy.

Leigh

#3  04 April 2005 - 18:30

 

Yep, it's a fun one all right. Green Day is all right; I think they'e groovy. I too played Dookie to death when it came out. Now my daughters think they've come across something new and cool. Ha. Hoo. Hoo-ha, I say.

carl

Anonymous

#4  04 April 2005 - 19:39

 

Thank you, friends. I was worried this one might bring cries of 'are you kidding?', but it's good to know my friends have such good taste! And, Carl, nice Lou Reed riff.

timbyrnes

#5  05 April 2005 - 15:54

 

excellent post.

BanzaiDescent

Comments: