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Article here from Brooklyn Vegan - "Unpopular Opinion: Green Day's Insomniac is their best album":

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/unpopular-opinion-green-days-insomniac-is-their-best-album/

"Green Day nostalgia is in the air because their breakthrough album Dookie turned 25 this year. The band has been selling old gear from the Dookie era (including mud-stained speakers from their Woodstock ’94 set, which is both Green Day nostalgia and Woodstock nostalgia), and the band also unleashed a new Dookie-themed guitar pedal. Dookie turned Green Day into stars, it’s massively influential, it helped get so many people into punk, and it’s home to five of their biggest and most memorable pre-American Idiot singles. For all of these reasons, it’s generally considered their most classic album, but I’d argue that Green Day one-upped themselves just a few months later. Their best album is not the influential, hits-filled Dookie (or American Idiot for that matter), but Dookie‘s quickly-released followup Insomniac.

Dookie deserves all the credit it gets. For me personally, it was one of my first punk albums and I can’t imagine where I’d be today without it. You still hear about half of its songs at bars, parties, karaoke, etc, and if you’re under the age of 35 and you play in a punk band, chances are this album was and still is a very big deal to you. Its songs are deeply ingrained in the DNA of modern punk, and dissing it at this point feels like an eyeroll-worthy attempt at being contrarian. That said, like lots of albums this immensely popular, it’s easy to get tired of hearing Dookie or at least feeling like you don’t have much of a reason to put it on at home anymore. I unintentionally hear Dookie songs multiple times a year just by leaving the house, I don’t really need to come home and put it on myself too. If you’ve never listened to Green Day, it might still be the best place to start, but once you’ve absorbed the whole catalog, you may find that Insomniac holds up better. Part of that is because you hear it less — it didn’t match the success of Dookie and it has less hits (Insomniac‘s only real huge hit is “Brain Stew,” which got even more of a boost when a remixed version appeared in the 1998 Godzilla movie) — but that’s not the only reason. It’s not exactly the In Utero to Dookie‘s Nevermind or the Pinkertonto Dookie‘s Blue Album or the Kid A to Dookie‘s OK Computer, but it is just a bit darker and harder than its predecessor and that goes a long way. Dookie can start to sound too bubblegummy after a while, but Insomniac manages to deliver plenty of singalong punk songs without falling into that same trap. It was also recorded better, and the band played better. They hit the studio in December 1994, just weeks after wrapping up their nearly-year-long tour schedule supporting Dookie, and they were unsurprisingly on fire at this point. They had just spent months playing tons of shows to the biggest crowds of their career (including the aforementioned Woodstock ’94), which was all the prep they needed to quickly bang out a rock-solid followup to an instant classic. It gets overlooked because it came so soon after Dookie, and because the next album (1997’s Nimrod) introduced Green Day to even more non-punk audiences with its destined-to-be-sung-at-graduations song “Time Of Your Life.” But among its 14 tracks are some of — if not the — best songs Green Day ever wrote.

Like Dookie, Insomniac opens with a now-iconic drum fill, and if it sounds right off the bat that Tre Cool is hitting harder than he had ever hit before, he himself would agree. As he told Rolling Stone around the time of the album’s release, he credited it to having a kid. “I can hit the drums harder than I ever thought I could. Having a kid is trying – you have to watch your temper all the time – but it enhances the experience of playing in the band.” Then the rest of the band comes in, and it’s instant pop punk bliss. Billie Joe Armstrong’s power chords sound sharper than ever, Mike Dirnt’s basslines are more in the pocket than ever, and maybe the most noticeable improvement in Green Day’s sound comes in on the chorus: the vocal harmonies. Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt’s harmonies were admittedly a little shaky early on in Green Day’s career, and though they had vastly improved them by Dookie, Insomniac was the moment they perfected them. By the time they branched out from punk and started delivering more complex vocal work, they were pros at harmonizing, and that all started on Insomniac.

It’s clear from album opener “Armatage Shanks” alone that Green Day’s songwriting took a turn for the slightly darker on Insomniac — Billie Joe’s lyrics have always had a dark side, but here his introvertedness and pessimism is matched by the tone of the music more than it was on Dookie — and he managed to do this while only strengthening his knack for melodicism. The verse and the chorus on this song both come with a hook that rivals Green Day’s bigger hits. That continues on the next two songs, “Brat” and “Stuck With Me,” which make for the most relentless one-two-three punch of any Green Day album, and Insomniac has a handful of other should’ve-been hits like “Stuart and the Ave,” “86,” and “No Pride.” Those songs hit the same pleasure points as “When I Come Around” and “Longview,” and they’re actually even tighter and punchier. It’s hard to say for sure, but I bet if “Brat” and “Stuart and the Ave” were the ones all over MTV and the radio in the ’90s, they’d be karaoke regulars today too. (The album’s poppiest song and second biggest hit after “Brain Stew” was “Walking Contradiction,” though admittedly I think that’s one of Insomniac‘s weaker songs.) There’s also an argument to be made that Green Day had developed an even more unique sound on these songs. Dookieearned Green Day their fair share of comparisons to the Buzzcocks, but by Insomniac it was undeniable that this was a band with an original sound of their own.

Along with those punchier songs, Insomniac had a slightly heavier — and sometimes slower — sound too. That’s very evident on the aforementioned “Brain Stew,” which sorrrrrrt of goes into alt-metal or grunge territory, but it’s also there on “Geek Stink Breath” (which was also a minor hit), on the hard rock of “Bab’s Uvula Who,” and on the classic rock-ish “Panic Song.” There’s also “Jaded,” which is usually packaged with “Brain Stew” as one big two-part song, and which is one of Green Day’s hardest punk songs.

Insomniac was also the last time Green Day were a true punk band. Nimrod had its fair share of punk songs (including career highlight “The Grouch”), but it mostly saw them going in a lighter, more “rock” direction that got even lighter on Nimrod‘s 2000 followup, Warning. (And then they would come back four years later, fully reinvented as rock opera makers, with American Idiot. And the rest was not-very-punk history.) Insomniac closed the book on Green Day’s punk roots, and it’s still the best proof that Green Day really were just a great punk band, before the graduation ballads and the rock operas and the actual Broadway musicals. There’s also a good argument to be made that the pre-Dookie stuff — when Green Day were on Lookout! and playing shows at Gilman St. — was Green Day at their most punk, but as good as the early material (especially Kerplunk) is, their tools weren’t as sharp back then as they were on Insomniac. It might not be their most popular album, but it’s the one where everything just clicked and fell into place so quickly. It sounds better and less dated than its rawer predecessors, and it’s meaner and leaner than any Green Day album that followed. Of all the albums from the band’s classic ’90s run, it’s the one that sounds most fresh today."

It ends with some videos if anyone is interested.

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11 hours ago, jengd said:

Great article, but really “melodicism” 😂😂

I am glad I'm not the only person severely bothered by this :lol: 

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The failed attempt to sound fancy aside, it's good to see Insomniac getting some recognition. That doesn't happen very often even though it's completely deserved. I love that album and its punk-ness.

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38 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

Not to be a drag but I’d rather a DVD release of a show that we’ve never seen not one that’s been on YouTube for ages. 

Yeah, same.

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This sounds very much like a "my dad works at Nintendo" kind of situation, but if it's true that's neat. Also yeah, I'd rather see an unreleased show rather than the Woodstock '94 one that we already have access to in various formats.

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While I would also like to see an unreleased show, like something from RevRad, I still think it'll be cool to own. After all with these intense copyright the show is not guaranteed to stay on YouTube.

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1 hour ago, The Insider said:

Green Day’s Woodstock LP was the third biggest seller that’s awesome. I wonder how many copies it sold. 

And I can’t keep up with Mike’s properties. Where do they even live now, NorCal or SoCal?

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2 hours ago, Adorkable said:

Sounds good. You pay for the place I'll buy the food

Don't buy meat.

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On 4/25/2019 at 5:20 PM, pacejunkie punk said:

Green Day’s Woodstock LP was the third biggest seller that’s awesome. I wonder how many copies it sold. 

And I can’t keep up with Mike’s properties. Where do they even live now, NorCal or SoCal?

It’s a dope ass house. If I had a desire to live up there and about 5 more million dollars on hand, id buy it. In case you haven’t realized Mike dabbles in real estate and I would be warey that he’s selling. He’s an assuming great predictor and has sold before popped bubbles a few times.

The SoCal market bucks all trends (like rental and FOR SALE real estate going up at the same time). Usually one goes up, the other goes down but it’s not happening that way. Speculative real estate marketing in SoCal is either a fool or a genius man’s game. LA should have had a “no vacancy” sign around 2012.

But I digress. Fall can’t get here soon enough.

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3 minutes ago, LaughingClock said:

But I digress. Fall can’t get here soon enough.

😳

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21 minutes ago, LaughingClock said:

But I digress. Fall can’t get here soon enough.

I know. I’ve been holding off on other travel plans for then in case there are some shows I need to travel to. Trying to keep my calendar free at this point apart from the things I can’t help (weddings, etc.)

Just an album title right now would be enough to satisfy me.

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Every Rock Hall of Fame All-Star Jam, Ranked by Epicness

Tier 3: “Epic? Quite”

https://www.vulture.com/article/best-rock-hall-of-fame-allstar-super-jams.html

15 most-streamed Spotify songs that might surprise you

https://www.altpress.com/features/most-streamed-spotify-songs-alternative-rock/

5. Green Day – “Basket Case” (325.2 million)

Yes, “Basket Case” is one of Green Day’s most iconic songs, breaking them into the mainstream along with the rest of Dookie. However, we guessed one of the premier tracks off the mid-2000’s dominating American Idiot would take the streaming throne. Nonetheless, this is a situation where you really can’t go wrong. They’re all classics.

Other top tracks: “American Idiot” (269 million), “Wake Me Up When September Ends” (249 million), “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” (220.6 million), “21 Guns” (213 million)

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Piece here from Kerrang - "Tre Cool Remembers The Gig That Made Green Day Famous":

https://www.kerrang.com/the-news/tré-cool-remembers-the-gig-that-changed-green-days-lives/

Green_Day_old_promo.jpg?auto=compress&fi

"Following the release of the band’s new Record Store Day vinyl, Green Daydrummer Tré Cool says that the legendary mud-filled gig that the record was taken from – Woodstock ’94 – was one that “changed our whole lives”.

Reflecting on the show on the Member Guest podcast (featuring Linkin Parkbassist Dave Farrell), the sticksman fondly remembers how “chaotic” it was, and that the weather conditions “set up really well for Green Day to take the stage and make all hell break loose”.

“’94 Woodstock was a complete shit-show,” he says. “It was a Pepsi-sponsored thing, it was, like, worldwide televised pay-per-view and all that stuff, and every band of significance was there. It was crazy. And of course people start going around the fence and sneaking in, and it kind of became mayhem. And then bad weather came and it was raining like crazy and the whole place became a mud pit. It was pretty chaotic, and set up really well for Green Day to take the stage and make all hell break loose.

“All of a sudden a mud fight started happening, and they were throwing it onstage and we were throwing it back and it got all chaotic. We kept trying to play, but Billie [Joe Armstrong, frontman] was getting mud hitting his guitar and Mike [Dirnt, bass] was getting it on his bass and hitting him. Luckily my drum set was just far enough back where I was less in harm’s way… It was punk as fuck, and nobody expected that to happen.

“Mike actually got tackled [onstage] by a security guard because he was covered in mud and the security guard didn’t know who was who. They tackled Mike and broke his tooth and chipped his elbow! It was pretty gnarly if you see the video – the guy grabs Mike and slams him down, and he’s a big-ass security guy.”

GreenDayLiveVinyl.jpg?auto=compress&fit=

And of the actual Record Store Day release artwork, Tré explains:

“Billie made his debut as an album cover artist with this thing, and it’s really, really cool. So it’s basically the cover of Dookie with Duct Tape over it, and it says Woodstock ’94 Live Performance, and then he splattered mud on it and wrote, ‘Never trust a hippy.’ That’s the cover. It’s cool – it’s a fun listen. It was a crazy set – a set that changed our whole lives, really. After that day, tons of people were showing up at our shows. That was kind of the pivot moment – that was the green jacket moment for this band.

“We have some cool recordings – over the years we’ve recorded stuff, and we’re just sitting on them. And we wanted to do something cool for Record Store Day, and for the 25th anniversary of Dookie it kind of seemed like a fitting release.”

There's a link to listen to the full podcast in the article.

If you haven’t seen it before, or just fancy a re-watch because it absolutely rules, check out Green Day’s legendary Woodstock set below.

The setlist was:

1. Welcome To Paradise
2. One Of My Lies
3. Chump
4. Longview
5. Basket Case
6. When I Come Around
7. Burnout
8. F.O.D.
9. Paper Lanterns

 

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2 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

😐 “Have a question” it asks? Yeah I have a question. WTF dude?!  The comment one person left is really funny too. 

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That is like the worst fuck up! 😂 Why does this exist?!

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