Where would Green Day be if Cigarettes and Valentines wasn't stolen?

[Fuzz]

After watching Behind the Music last night, when the band talked about it being stolen, the head of Warner saying he a got a call that morning saying it was missing, i dunno, kinda hard to say it didn't happen anymore.

[green day is]

Considering I'm pretty sure it wasn't stolen, probably at the same place because they would've ditched it like they did, made American Idiot and be where they are now.

Excuse me, "released as demos"?

More like, phone message-quality whatever they were of which the songs could be from any time at all, posted coincidentally around the time they were working on C&V somewhere on the internet. I am pretty sure Minnesota Girl is a way old song, although I don't remember where I read that. And as far as I know is "What About Today" more like a Network demo than Green Day. Just because it was posted around that time doesn't mean it was a C&V song. Also if you use the word 'might'. For example, Dreamcatcher was played ("released") in a soundtrack in the 21stCB era, so it *might* have been for 21stCB, but there is no proof for that whatsoever. Same goes for all the things you said, Things I Heard got out around the time C&V was being worked on, so it *might* have been on that album, but there's nothing that suggests it actually is except for the timing.

Olivia was written for 21stCB, I think it was mentioned in articles about that album (but I'm not entirely sure of that).

Y'know, because the whole band got together and left a phone unhooked while they played. Right. They sound like the band got in a studio, all together, and recorded a couple of songs with everyone in the same room, no mixing, but those were not recorded onto a phone, like the others.

Why does it have to be a coincidence? I'm using my own, personal reasoning to decide if they might (hey, there's that word again) have been on it.

Who cares what kind of demo What About Today sounds like? How do you even know that when we can hardly understand any of it? And if you can understand it, PM me the lyrics NAO.

No, just because it was posted around the same time as C&V was being worked on doesn't mean it was a C&V song, but it gives it a higher probability of it having been.

As for Minnesota Girl, all I have to say is that Good Riddance was written in Kerplunk! times and released on nimrod.

On another note, Dreamcatcher was on a soundtrack? Like, a studio version? Mind pointing me to it?

[mallorymaloney]

I thought we had all decided that Cigarettes And Valentines never really existed ...?

Or at least that the whole 'fuuuuuu the master tapes were stolen' thing was just a joke, anyway.

[ganis]

After watching Behind the Music last night, when the band talked about it being stolen, the head of Warner saying he a got a call that morning saying it was missing, i dunno, kinda hard to say it didn't happen anymore.

True, but it still makes not sense that if someone stole the album, that this someone hasn't leaked the album, esspecially, I guess after, the success of American Idiot.. Is this someone just keeping it for him/herself?

That is the reason why I don't belive them, and I don't care about how many interviews they are going to say that it was stolen.. I still don't belive it, untill C&V gets leaked..

[Fuzz]

True, but it still makes not sense that if someone stole the album, that this someone hasn't leaked the album, esspecially, I guess after, the success of American Idiot.. Is this someone just keeping it for him/herself?

That is the reason why I don't belive them, and I don't care about how many interviews they are going to say that it was stolen.. I still don't belive it, untill C&V gets leaked..

Maybe they got them back? Maybe someone actually did just misplace a hard drive unknowingly? I don't know. I think it's silly for us to try and make a definite argument when we really don't know the whole story.

[Anja]

American Idiot was the best thing that could happen to Green Day in my opinion, especially in the time it was released. No other album fitted so well in the politic era we were in back then. I cant really say how successful Cigaretts and Valentines would have been of course, but I don't think it would have been as succesful as AI. American Idiot was fresh, different than anything else that was released 2004 and it took Green Day to a new level musically. So no matter if C&V was really stolen, it was the best idea to release an album like American Idiot.

[green day is]

I always believed that it was stolen until I read Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent.... and saw what [i think] Rob Cavallo said, about how they were in a safe and there was tons of security and stuff, and it just no longer made any sense to say they were stolen, however, I know that Green Day isn't the kind of band that does stuff for publicity, as some people say the album was made-up for, and even then, most people don't even know about C&V except GD's die-hard fans, so my logical conclusion is that it existed and they scrapped it.

[Fuzz]

No question in my mind that the whole story was a concerted effort. From the beginning.

There's no reason for them to have to make up a lie like that, though. It's not like there was all kinds of press from people talking about the band working on C&V, the big follow up to Warning.

People didn't even know it existed till the band said it was stolen.

[permanent_insanity]

I think the band said that CV was stolen because perhaps at the time they didnt want to admit to scrapping an entire album. As far as where the band would be if they had released CV instead. I think they would not have become as popular as they did. American Idiot was exactly what people needed to hear at that moment, I'm not sure any other album could have filled that.

[November's Storms]

You can't just name b-sides and/or unreleased songs and say they were going to be on C&V

Sorry I meant to + rep that but hit the wrong button!

[Hermione]

Regardless of whether the material they were working was stolen, they realized it wasn't what they wanted to do and they weren't pushing themselves far enough so they decided to up their game and do something different. It wasn't just a case of walking in the studio and going "oh fuck it's gone now we'll have to start again!" - if they'd wanted to they could've recreated it. Whether or not it was stolen is pretty much irrelevant. They weren't happy with it and chose to do something different.

So basically if it was stolen we'd have Amercian Idiot, and if it wasn't we'd have American Idiot . Maybe if it was stolen it spurred them on a bit, but it seems more like just a way for them to illustrate when the decision to change happened than the actual reason for the change. A symbollic kind of thing.

[Katarina.]

I don't really like threads like these. I mean, we got told it was stolen, and we can't go back to when it happened, stop the person who did it, and let Green Day release the record. Asking "what if" doesn't bring you anywhere. They didn't want to re-record C&V, so apparently they weren't that happy with the record anyway.

It's funny (about C&V), I sometimes think the whole "the master tapes were stolen" thing is not true. Like, that they did record a whole record, or just the song Cigarettes and Valentines (that we only heard live this year), but that they weren't happy with how it sounded. At that time Billie wrote American Idiot, came up with the JOS and all that, and decided to scrap C&V.

Or.. they were writing/making songs, when they suddenly got the idea for songs with a new wave sound, which ended up on Money Money 2020 (and made up the C&V got stolen story for them to have fun with the Network)..

[greendepent]

As far I can tell, if that album is released today, I'm sure that it will be a complete success

[Anja]

Maybe they just had a fun night out, were all drunk and made up a story about stolen tapes because they felt like it No one knows.

[Lu.]

Things don't happen just like that, usually everything has its hidden reason. Whether C&V was stolen or discarded, it was probably a fortunate thing, because American Idiot is by far one of the best albums in Green Day's career and in History (altough some will think it's a little overplayed, and it's true up to a point). Maybe if they had released C&V things would have turned out a lot different for them, however I think it'd have been awesome too but maybe not as remarkable and astounding as AI is.

[AnnA™]

Haha, I'll just assume that they actually were stolen... Very difficult to speculate. I have a hard time imagining that massive success American Idiot got, with a different album, as American Idiot stands for so much and had such an important impact on everything. But at the same time, they're Green Day after all and they might've been just as successful with Cigarettes and Valentines. We'll never know.

Funny I found this thread though. A few hours ago when I watched the remastered VH1 show, I was thinking: where would I be if the tapes weren't stolen? Kind of weird. Never would've heard the song that got me into them in the first place... Sorry, slightly off-topic.

[whitetower99]

I think they should of just recorded it again, i mean it doesnt make sence. Theyre the best band in the world (: They should of just played the whole album again. No doubt in my mind it would of been AMAZING!!!!!! They would of promoted it by going on tour which would of been amazing!!!!

[Bohemian+Scandal]

There's no reason for them to have to make up a lie like that, though. It's not like there was all kinds of press from people talking about the band working on C&V, the big follow up to Warning.

People didn't even know it existed till the band said it was stolen.

I still think they were just amusing themselves with a more dramatic origin story for AI rather than getting into the more personal origin behind it... There's no reason for Green Day to do a lot of the things they do. The story they gave just doesn't make that much sense. Of course they, or someone else close to them in the studio may have "stolen" the masters and told that to Warner rather than tell Warner they didn't want to continue that album anymore. That's entirely possible. But it's not like that story could have been upheld for long with Warner. No leak. No real harm done to the band (they had backups and could have easily recreated what they did). No logical motivation. There was no reason for it to be gone other than for the eventual benefit of the band.

The stolen story is more intriguing though and I don't blame them for sticking with it when it comes to the media. Just for kicks.

[Fuzz]

I still think they were just amusing themselves with a more dramatic origin story for AI rather than getting into the more personal origin behind it... There's no reason for Green Day to do a lot of the things they do. The story they gave just doesn't make that much sense. Of course they, or someone else close to them in the studio may have "stolen" the masters and told that to Warner rather than tell Warner they didn't want to continue that album anymore. That's entirely possible. But it's not like that story could have been upheld for long with Warner. No leak. No real harm done to the band (they had backups and could have easily recreated what they did). No logical motivation. There was no reason for it to be gone other than for the eventual benefit of the band.

The stolen story is more intriguing though and I don't blame them for sticking with it when it comes to the media. Just for kicks.

I just have trouble believing that to be the case when the when the head of Warner talks about it.

[Burnout98]

I cant say if it would be different, but they said that it wasn't their best material. Obviously American Idiot worked for them and that is all that matters. They made the right choice.

[November's Storms]

It's funny (about C&V), I sometimes think the whole "the master tapes were stolen" thing is not true. Like, that they did record a whole record, or just the song Cigarettes and Valentines (that we only heard live this year), but that they weren't happy with how it sounded. At that time Billie wrote American Idiot, came up with the JOS and all that, and decided to scrap C&V.

Or.. they were writing/making songs, when they suddenly got the idea for songs with a new wave sound, which ended up on Money Money 2020 (and made up the C&V got stolen story for them to have fun with the Network)..

As they mentioned on a recent podcast, I don't believe the crap about songs from CnV becoming Money Money 2020. I can't see Billie writing about transistors or supermodel robots

But I do have skepticism over the "album". When asked about it, the guys are always so vague, to me it seems like they have worked out a story and they stick to it. Even on the new updated Behind the Music episode they brush it off with the "stolen hard drive" line and then move on. If they put all the time and effort into writing and recording the songs, a) they wouldn't be solely on one hard drive and b) they surely would have been good enough to at least record again.

[Katarina.]

As they mentioned on a recent podcast, I don't believe the crap about songs from CnV becoming Money Money 2020. I can't see Billie writing about transistors or supermodel robots

But I do have skepticism over the "album". When asked about it, the guys are always so vague, to me it seems like they have worked out a story and they stick to it. Even on the new updated Behind the Music episode they brush it off with the "stolen hard drive" line and then move on. If they put all the time and effort into writing and recording the songs, a) they wouldn't be solely on one hard drive and b) they surely would have been good enough to at least record again.

Well, I agree with what you said. I don't believe songs from C&V became the ones on Money Money 2020. I just meant that, while writing songs for Cigarettes and Valentines, they might have gotten the idea of just having fun and making songs for a side project that later became the Network.

[Mar]

I bet they would have broken up if C&V sold close to Warning numbers. Not because of any egotistical reasons, but more of a "is it really worth it? We're not happy and not successful enough to warrant being this unhappy" type of deal. And I wouldn't blame them for thinking that way. They weren't happy with C&V for whatever reason, so I think they were creatively frustrated, and that would have been the last straw.

Maybe they would have reunited later this decade, but I doubt AI and 21CB would have happened.

[clairex]

I don't understand why they would need to lie. It is common for recording artists to ditch an album and start again from scratch.

[Eldoon]

As they mentioned on a recent podcast, I don't believe the crap about songs from CnV becoming Money Money 2020. I can't see Billie writing about transistors or supermodel robots

But I do have skepticism over the "album". When asked about it, the guys are always so vague, to me it seems like they have worked out a story and they stick to it. Even on the new updated Behind the Music episode they brush it off with the "stolen hard drive" line and then move on. If they put all the time and effort into writing and recording the songs, a) they wouldn't be solely on one hard drive and b) they surely would have been good enough to at least record again.

This is how I feel. There's been so many variations on the "stolen Cigs & Valentines" story that the band has given, it's hard to believe everything they're saying. If I could just make an educated guess, I think in 2003 GD and Cavallo were writing and tracking for a new album, with some finished songs (Too Much Too Soon among them, if Billie is to believed.) At somepoint, they hit a wall and realized they weren't happy with the direction they were going, having just written AI's title track, and gotten the ideas for Homecoming and JOS, so they began writing what would become American Idiot. I think the whole "stolen album" thing was more or less a PR stunt, or just a way to embellish drama into the AI mythos.

As far as the Cigs and Valentines/Money Money 2020 connection, I don't think they're the exact same album, as some conspiracy theorists do. Obviously, The Network was more of an organic, overt effort, as opposed to just slapping costumes and synths on some old Cigs & Valentines songs. However, it's entirely possible that they used elements of tracks from the C&V sessions when writing The Network's tunes. That one "What About Today" song that was posted on GD.com in 2003 is veeeeeery similar to Spike. Also, this is pure guesswork, but Roshambo sounds awfully like something that started as a pure GD song and got retrofitted for the Network album.