The Trilogy Ends: Everyone Riots

Ahh...how to do this without launching into a huge rant about the Trilogy.

Well, let me run through my thought process. See, at some point, I'd like to do a really large, well-constructed editorial on the Trilogy as a whole and where it fits into the Green Day mythos. I wouldn't doing a podcast style thing with a few other GDCers either, if there's interest. But the thing is, not now.

Maybe I'm not the only one, but reading through the "Tre" thread just seems...wrong. Something about all these opinions just seems very very off, and I've noticed it with "Dos" too. I mean, views are all OVER the place, from rage to disgust to love and disbelief...it's just kinda weird. As far as Tre goes, I think it's kind of just "meh" myself, but I don't feel confident saying that for some reason. My theory is that I'm waiting to do things with Tre. I want to shuffle it around on my iPod with Dos and Uno, and listen to it in my car. I want to hear it on good speakers. I want things to sink in.

One thing that I think a lot of people are missing around here right now is that this trilogy of albums is a MASSIVE thing. It features much more than we can process at once, I think, especially when you start trying to decide what your ideal unified album would be. Part of the issue with Tre, I think, is that we may have just gotten done digesting Dos. Let's face it, most of us probably have not encountered a case where a band we like has released three albums in four months. It's just a weird experience, and I feel like that's affected our perception of the music. If there was something we didn't like on Uno, there was always Dos...and if there was something we didn't like on Dos, there was always Tre.

Yet, I think a lot of truth can be found in how the release of the Trilogy has been organized...and by that I mean it hasn't been very organized. Uno's release was confusing...there were singles and videos and videos that weren't for singles, and singles that didn't really have videos, and little shows hear and there and HLECK. It was WEIRD. And then Dos comes around and FFTTT, silence. There was one music video. That was all. One single. And nothing. And then a single from Tre. And now Tre's here.

The theme here is that the band doesn't get to bite back. All we have is ourselves and the albums. There aren't live shows to give us insight into the energy that goes into these songs. There aren't interviews all over the place that feature the band being asked about particular songs and why they thought they were so good. Due to Billie Joe's rehab, the band has been largely absent whatsoever during this crucial, confusing time. Normally the band's presence guides you through an album, telling you what the focal points are and why things were done as they were...and normally that's only for one album. I mean, yeah there's media out there about the trilogy, but now when we're actually hearing it for ourselves...it's a little different.

Thinking about it, I'm a little disappointed that Mike and Tre have both remained so quiet. Sure, they can't play shows, but you'd think they could talk about the albums a little bit. It's hard to retort with "but Billie Joe wrote the songs" when Mike and Tre's faces appear on the covers of the album. I think there's a lot to be said about how Billie Joe's songwriting duties affect the band, but that's a different story. I don't know what I'd expect Mike and Tre to do, but at a time like this, I feel like we're being left quite deeply in the dark. It's like after Billie went into rehab everyone kind of put their heads down, rolled the shades up and went home. Albums are often compared to children, and these newborn triplets seem to have been abandoned, and if the parents don't care, why should we? It's pretty undeniable that the absence of the band and Billie has had an impact on the perception of the Trilogy.

Aaaand there's me ranting on it when I said I wouldn't. This wasn't about the music though, it was about the context (context, which I ironically have to do a project on in cognitive psych...too bad I can't just get up there and perform this rant for it).

Point is...what I wanna ask is that we take a step back and just kind of wait a minute. Maybe kind of choose our words wisely a little more now. There's this HUGE cloud overhead that's making everyone hold their breath, and that cloud is when the band is actually around. THAT is the new Tre. THAT is the new thing we will now, perhaps subconciously, cling to to clear up this hugeass mess. Or...if someone would like to politely explain this to me beyond "people have different opinions, deal with it" that could be nice too.

The thing I keep asking myself is "What did you/I/they EXPECT from this trilogy?" and more importantly "why?" or maybe "what would actually be the formula for such a release?"


Okay. I need to study and schoolwork now. Big time.