The Politics of Green Day's Album Art

[oldcityphl]

In the wake of the US Invasion of Iraq, traditionally socially conscious but typically non-political bands like NOFX and Green Day went political. Green Day with American Idiot and NOFX with The War on Errorism with even Descendents put out their 'Merican EP.

Green Day, keeping up an elevated semi-political stance since American Idiot (though falling back heavier into concept-album social commentary as opposed to political messages) have utilized an leftist, activist aesthetic through their art direction.

American Idiot had a hand-grenade in the shape of a heart (pin-in), and the back with the solo pin removed
Holiday’s cover showed Billy Joe as a suicide bomber and tour T-Shirts showed dynomite as a nod to that cover

21CB was loaded with activist art: 

The back cover of the record shows a couple kissing upon a burning car, invoking a riot scene

The title track off of 21st Century Breakdown shows a woman with an American Flag bandana over her face invoking the imagery and angst of the global atmosphere culminating ultimately with Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street in later years. 

Know Your Enemy shows a protestor burning a sheet of paper with the words “your photo here” on it. I’m not sure the message of this display.

21 Guns shows a member of military infantry walking away from a floor covered in guns.

Little mention of politics in the Tre albums that followed, though there were reports (https://douglasernst.blog/2012/09/03/billie-joe-armstrong-uno-dos-tre-about-three-obama-drone-strikes/) that songs were supposed to include political material about the victims of Drone attacks and producer Rob Cavallo ‘shot’ down that idea. The artwork was moot, paralleling the creative direction of the three records that had “absolutely no direction to them”. http://www.greendayauthority.com/news/5336/

The reason I bring it up: are they restricting themselves from being political for the sake of record sales?

Avoiding certain topics/stopping themselves from direct action messages against the militarization of police/police brutality, income inequality, quagmire wars, neo-fascists entering the mainstream American political arena?

Could they and should they use their platform to spotlight less middle-of-the-road political subjects, more leftist, more radical? Speaking of the burning of black churches, jewish gravestones being kicked over at cemeteries, how confrontational rallies hitting close to home at Berkley have been and how strong the Black Bloc has had to be to counter fascist violence; 

Its also worth mentioning that Warning sold 1.2 million copies and American Idiot sold 16 million records so their activist message seems to work for them. 

[Sarcasm]

I don't think AI sold more than Warning because Warning wasn't political, AI just hit the timing right and had more hit singles on it. Dookie sold 20 million and it's largely about jerking off and the cover is a mish-mash of monkeys throwing poop and the album name being draped across a literal pile of shit. 

[unextraordinarygirl]

The album Revolution Radio is full of political and Social statements. Though some may be more subtle, but others aren't. There's Bang Bang about a mass shooter, Say Goodbye about the police and water situation in Flint, MI. Black Lives Matter. Billie talks about a lot of current subjects on the this album. 

Billie also gets pretty poltical during the concerts. During the RevRad tour he talked about unity and togetherness, hating Donald Trump and other things. I'm not sure how much more political you want them to get. 

[Eric]

3 hours ago, unextraordinarygirl said:

The album Revolution Radio is full of political and Social statements. Though some may be more subtle, but others aren't. There's Bang Bang about a mass shooter, Say Goodbye about the police and water situation in Flint, MI. Black Lives Matter. Billie talks about a lot of current subjects on the this album. 

Billie also gets pretty poltical during the concerts. During the RevRad tour he talked about unity and togetherness, hating Donald Trump and other things. I'm not sure how much more political you want them to get. 

People are never satisfied  

[Hermione]

9 hours ago, unextraordinarygirl said:

The album Revolution Radio is full of political and Social statements. Though some may be more subtle, but others aren't. There's Bang Bang about a mass shooter, Say Goodbye about the police and water situation in Flint, MI. Black Lives Matter. Billie talks about a lot of current subjects on the this album. 

Billie also gets pretty poltical during the concerts. During the RevRad tour he talked about unity and togetherness, hating Donald Trump and other things. I'm not sure how much more political you want them to get. 

Also the Troubled Times music video featuring Trump with KKK hat teeth! Couldn't be more directly political.

There are definitely bands that are much more direct about politics though, OP has a point. But I think it's an artistic choice rather than something motivated by record sales. As a songwriter Billie seems to prefer to focus on how the stuff going on in the world makes him feel rather than the specifics of it, he offers an emotional response including a wish to find a solution rather than attempting to actually offer a solution. Not every band has to make straight up activist songs spreading detailed information about the issues, that's fine for those bands but Green Day has a different approach. And as mentioned they've done well and less well with both political and not so political albums anyway, it's not the sole key to their success.

[oldcityphl]

Thanks for the TT video nod, it actually reminds me of a song by The Krays: http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/krays/troubledtimes.html // 

I suppose the idea was to veer from 'safe' political dialogue towards more direct-action advocation.

There is a very specific genesis of introspective, personal political messages in relation to the trans-atlantic jump that punk made. This has been echoed by Rollins and MacKaye stating in different terms that the UK/Euro global-scale politics didn't translate to them, that it was more relatable to sing about friendships breaking up and such - those more personal themes were prevalent in their early hardcore works. That then branced out to Emo through Rites Of Spring and shifted from there, etc...

and to answer unextraordinarygirl's question, Crass-Levels of political: cutting down telephone lines, a bitter and virulent attack on the neo-fascist right worse than anything the neo-con right was subjected to.

 

 

[Joe.]

Don't think the AI cover was necessarily political it's a reference to the line "and she's holding on my heart like a hand grenade" which, whilst having connotations of war or whatever isn't a political line