Nebula Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Many critics, journalists, and music fans like to point out that Green Day were a pretty irrelevant band in the late 90's and early 2000's and if it wasn't for American Idiot's success, the band might not be here today. I see this said time and time again but I'd like to contest it. The common argument goes that Green Day were one of the biggest bands in the world for a few years in the mid 90's, but after Insomniac and Nimrod failed to come close to the success of Dookie in terms of sales and hit songs, both the band and their popularity began to flounder. By the time Warning was released, the musical landscape was vastly different than it had been even just a few years prior with a new wave of pop punk bands, boy bands, and pop diva's leading the way. Green Day were now considered old hat and were written off by many. Then, a few years later, American Idiot came out and THEY WERE SAVED! To me, this is flawed. While it's true Green Day may not have been as popular as they used to be during this period, they were still a pretty popular group. Good Riddance was released as a single at the end of 1997 and who doesn't remember that song being on the radio every 10 minutes all throughout 1998? That song was huge. In 2000 they were on the Warped Tour, a popular touring festival, and only a few months later Warning came out. This is the album that gets cited the most as Green Day at their most irrelevant but I remember being very aware that Green Day had a new album coming out. There was buzz. I also remember hearing Minority on the radio quite often and even seeing the music video on TV a fair amount of times. Warning was their lowest selling major release album up to that point, but does that automatically make it a flop? Not every album you release is going to sell millions upon millions of copies. For the 2001 US tour in support of Warning, they played amphitheaters, auditoriums, and theaters. A lot of people point to this as evidence that they were no longer very popular and unable to fill arenas. The thing is, although they had played some arena dates in the US in the past, since Dookie was released they mostly stuck to theaters, amphitheaters and auditoriums anyway. This really wasn't radically different than what they had been doing up to this point. Hell, they played tons of amphitheater shows in support of 21st Century Breakdown and that was AFTER the jolt of the all mighty American Idiot. All throughout this period, they were also in the cover of many magazines and lots of magazines also had articles on them. They weren't exactly ignored. International Superhits came out in 2001 and people like to point to this as a definite sign the band was in trouble...an active band releasing a compilation album just one year after a new studio album had come out. While this could have definitely been a move by Warner Brothers to make up for the perceived lack of sales for Warning, whose to say it wouldn't have come out anyway as a quick cash grab in time for the 2001 Christmas Season? And this album has sold fairly well. I remember tons of kids in school having a copy of this compilation. The following year, they went on a fairly high profile tour with Blink 182 who had by this time stolen their crown in the mainstream as the kings of pop punk, but by most accounts of those in attendance, Green Day blew Blink 182 off the stage every single night. After this, it was only 2 years until Green Day would release American Idiot and once again become one of the biggest bands on the planet. Now, it's true that during this period they weren't as popular as they had been prior or they would be after but I think to say they were irrelevant or dead in the water like so many critics like to say is a pretty big exaggeration. It's revisionist history. Not being AS popular doesn't make you irrelevant. Could they have filled Milton Keynes for two nights during this time? No. But not many bands could. Many of the bands that were on top of the charts in '98 - '03 most likely couldn't. And look at that time frame; 1998 to 2003 is 5 years. They actually did a fair amount of stuff in those 5 years. In the time between the American Idiot tour ending and 21st Century Breakdown being released, there was 4 years of no activity from them (except for the relatively low key Hot Tubs stuff, but that wasn't even under the Green Day name or brand). So, I'd like to get your guys' take on all of this. Do you remember hearing about Green Day during this period? Do you remember the songs on the radio? Or just your general opinion by observing videos, articles, reviews, etc.... do you think Green Day were really so dead during this period?
djrossstar Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 I agree. I have been a consistent Green Day fan since 1994 and this era was great. The band still played huge venues, was on every late night show, had songs on the radio, concert specials on MTV/HBO, appearances on shows like King of the Hill and The Chris Issak Show. Green Day has always been big!
Homero Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 The thing is, being a commercial band, not being in the spotlight for one or two years is pretty bad for the critics. But, they were still doing stuff (The Network album before American idiot for example). People that aren't fans never understand well enough
Lauren Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 I wasn't into Green Day back then, so I wouldn't know for sure, but here's what I think: Aside from Good Riddance, I don't think Nimrod was that popular. Yes, it had a LOT of airplay, and everyone knows that song, but they know it as a single. In fact, many people don't even know that song is by Green Day and are shocked when I tell them it is. and I doubt many people know anything from Warning. No, they were not irrelevant to the fans. It's not like the music they were releasing was crap, that made people stop being fans. I think people just called them "irrelevant" because they weren't making new music that did well with NEW fans. I know a lot of people that bought American Idiot, but no other album by Green Day. They were doing a lot of stuff from 1998-2003, yes. It's not like everyone hated them. but American Idiot brought them to the top again. They were then able to take a big break because they went all out. I'm just trying to think of this the way I saw other bands. There were bands that I bought albums for because I liked the bands, but there were other albums I bought just because they were popular. In all honesty, if it weren't for American Idiot, I don't think I'd even be into Green Day, unless I had an older person who knew them previously introduce me to them. I guess "relevant" just means super popular, I guess a little "viral" in a way. Green Day still played huge venues, but there are a lot of artists today that play huge venues who I have no idea who they are, or that they were popular a while ago and still have many fans who want to see them. but it's when artists go all Beatles-like and get a crap ton of new fans that they're "relevant". I hope at least some of that made sense
Clayish Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Yes, they were. They looked terrible, were sloppy live, and had 2 popular songs. Even though Warning is fantastic, it flopped.
Sixtrix Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 I think they have always been pretty big in the US since Dookie, but internationally they had a bit if a decline in their popularity in the late 90's and beginning of 00's I remember the Offspring playing at some Dutch festival in late 90's (they just became huge with the release of Americana) and a Dutch tv reporter for some music channel (TMF for those Dutchies who may remember it ) interviewed them. One of the questions to Dexter was how it felt for them that they kind of became very popular in 94 together with Green Day but now they became this huge band while Green Day "dissapeared" in the music scene. Dexter started with this enjoyable laugh realizing how irrelevant Green Day became outside the US. I've been a huge Green Day fan ever since I saw the Basket Case video in 94 and stole my brother's Dookie. I remember not seeing many Green Day videos since 97-98 on the Dutch music channel, though back then we received the Brittish MTV which provided us quite some Green Day music from time to time. I would set the video recorder to record Alternative Nation and watch it the next day hoping I caught a Green Day video on it. When Warning was released I remember seeing the video for Minority quite frequently on MTV but on the Dutch radio they announced that Green Day released a new album but instead of playing the new single they played Basket Case or When I Come Around and then saying something like "luckily we still have their good old music". So apparently the radio did not like the latest Green Day music. When American Idiot got released it was the first time since 1994 that I actually heard a new song of them being played on the radio very often and even seeing a commercial for the album on TV. Since then they finally became very relevant again in the Netherlands. Of course for me personally and in my heart Green Day actually never ceased to be relevant.
mbk Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 The music industry and music critics are interested in factors like album sales, radio play and how many tickets are sold to a concert tour. They then have something quantifiable to look at, and so they stick to those figures and make pronouncements based on them. But to me the relevance of a band is in their message and how they affect the people who listen to them. I understand your point (I think) in asking if Green Day was relevant during that period within that mainstream, industry mindset. The sales figures will say that they were less relevant in that respect than they had been. But I'm not sure why that would matter to you and me. We care about what the music means to us, and that relevance doesn't go away. (I'm about to contradict myself to say that I was paying a lot less attention to Green Day during Nimrod and Warning than I did during Dookie, Insomniac, and American Idiot -- though after AI I was hooked for life!)
PaulS Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Realistically, Green Day are about as irrelevant now as they were then. The only difference is that the media have appointed them 'elder statesmen', which affords them the respect they weren't given during a similarly fallow period in the late nineties. As Cat pointed out, the media emphasizes the success of Dookie and American Idiot not because they sold substantially more (though they did), but because it creates a narrative. In the same way the band's 'failures' - arbitrary or otherwise - are used as evidence for the end of guitar music; another narrative. Green Day were, are, and will continue to be fine. The media were, are and will continue to be disinterested when it suits them. And so we go on.
Harry Potter. Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 I don't know if it's just me, but I think that Green Day is starting to become more and more irrelevant with every month now. Dookie was their high point, American Idiot and 21stCB were their highest, I think. At least in Europe. People were anticipating Insomniac but then were disappointed, Good Riddance was the only famous song from Nimrod, Minority the only one from Warning, I think.
inthehallwaynow Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 something from my childhood that ill never forget I remember in 4th grade which for me was 2002 or close to that and each child was allowed to bring in items that you loved to display on the wall for a week so i brought in nimrod and sprawled the booklet from the cd on the wall and kept boasting about it haha anyway i went to the pop disaster tour to see them and when i came in with my green day tshirt the weekend after my teacher said "they aren't even popular anymore what have they done recently?" and that they werent cool anymore so i was crushed but it taught me a valuable lesson.. that green day are always irrelevant to some people (people with bad taste haha) and I find it funny that a couple years later they made history with American Idiot and 21st century breakdown also all the side bands and stuff in between i wonder if she ever thought to herself wow I was wrong about that haha definitely not but it makes me feel good haha..so id say yes there was a lack of GD fans during some periods in the early 2000's and such but they always have had strong hardcore fans in my opinion
djrossstar Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 My biggest regret is not buying the Warning argyle socks on the Warning tour.
Nuclear Family Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Typically when I see critics talking about Green Day's lack of relevance they are usually referring to the music itself not Green Day's popularity or their image. And on that side of things, Green Day have always been relevant to some sort of majority of people. Whether its a song like "Paper Lanterns" (more relevant for teens), or "American Idiot" (more relevant for adults) they have always had a message most people could relate to. And although Paper Lanterns isn't exclusively for teens and American Idiot isn't adults-only by any means, these themes tend to lean to one demographic more than the other.
Marrymebilliejoe Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. For some reason critics and people in general seem to say the Green Day became "irrelevant." Now, granted, I didn't actually listen to Green Day until American Idiot came out, but I have read A LOT about Green Day. And I think as most people have said already...critics seem to deem Green Day "irrelevant" because the success they may have gotten during the Nimrod/Warning era was no where near the success they had with Dookie. I know people have cited that "Good Riddance" was a huge hit off of Nimrod, but that really was their only super commercially successful songs. Like if you look at Green Day's "big" albums (I use that term loosely)..they usually have a couple of hits. But I think another reason that Green Day may have become "unpopular" with the mass of people after Dookie was that there sound took a different turn. NOT FOR THE WORSE! I love EVERY album they have produced. I actually know a friend who really enjoyed Green Day UNTIL American Idiot came out, and then she was like..ugh. People tend to not like things when they change. But I think Green Day has always gotten better and better. However, being a Green Day fan, I could careless what the critics say! I will love Green Day until the end(:
Insomniac1984 Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 At least, in my country (Chile), they were irrelevant on the Warning era. MTV showed many times Minority videoclip and Warning, however Waiting and Macy's Day Parade were not included on "Top charts". I remembered a classmate from high school who asked me why I am a GD fan, they're over!! I remember just one radio (Rock & Pop) that played Waiting so many times, but not for people's request. Warning album was considered here as a "sell out" album. Many people who liked them until that time started to hate them. At 2000 everybody was talking about Blink 182, Limp Bizkit or Slipknot.
BradGreenDay Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Yeah they where fading away from the spotlight I think Warning could have been a really famous album but i think it was just the timing of the release that made it less successfull!!!
StuckWithInsomnia Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 When I was first looking at Pre-American Idiot songs and reading Green Day's wikipedia page, it said "middle years and lack of commercial success, 1997-2003" (or something like that). And I was pretty surprised about that because I knew Warning and Minority, and Good Riddance pretty well. But this Geek Stink Breath, Brain Stew, Basket Case, Welcome To Paradise I had never heard of, I did know When I Come Around and Longview though but not as well as Warning and Good Riddance. Warning probably only went Gold (until like 2 months ago) because there was so much new stuff out at the time, Simple Plan, Sum 41, Good Charlotte and Blink-182 were making really pop-punk sounding songs and just cause it was something new, most of the pop-punk fans would have listened to them. As well round then, genres like Nu-Metal had just come out/made it big (Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park) as well as Eminem came out with 2-3 albums around then and they all went multi-platinum and that was when rap really began to spread beyond west coast gangsta sort of rap (sorry im white and not from America) by people like Tupac, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Eazy-E, B.I.G etc. Yeah I know those people were big in America but they hardly/didn't chart at all (Some of them had 1-2 hits) in Australia and other countries, the biggest rap song in Australia in the 90's was probably Baby Got Back by Sir Mix A-Lot.
Jet Taman Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 I mentioned in my book (My Green Days: the story of a fan & a band) (available on Amazon btw ) that I thought one of the reasons Warning didn't have the album sale success of the previous albums was because Napster was at the peak of its popularity when Warning came out. No one, I mean NO ONE was buying CD's anymore. I got the entire album a week ahead of time and of course, didn't pay a dime. That being said, the pop punk thing was wearing out its welcome thanks to all the bands riding the coattails of Green Day, such as New Found Glory, Sum 41, SR-71. Not to say they're bad bands, but they gained popularity THANKS to Green Day and everytime you turned on the radio it was a pop punk song and people were kind of sick of it. Green Day produces a new sound and people who expected to hear the pop punk sound got something different and they didn't necessarily like it. American Idiot had a meaning, had a purpose, and was EXACTLY what the world needed to hear in 2004.
Cob Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 Unfortunately it's true. "Good Riddance" at the time was HUGE but it was bigger than the band and WAY bigger than Nimrod. Nimrod was well received when it was released, but GD's fans at the time didn't really gel to it. They started heading towards playing smaller shows, but they were still mostly an arena band. Green Day was not a big headliner when they did the Warped Tour in 2000, Blink was and they were getting massive at the time, and many of the younger bands on the tour were getting into the spotlight. Warning was not well received (though in hindsight it has aged extremely well and many call it their best album musically) and the band started playing large theaters more often, no more arenas. Then they got really drunk, sloppy live, Billie Joe's "Fat Elvis" period, etc. The Pop Disaster Tour in 2002 invigorated the band somewhat, but they were opening for Blink who at the time was selling millions of records. Then they had major tension, almost broke up, did the whole Cigarettes and Valentines thing, found their creative spark again and BOOM! The rest has been (awesome) history. They always got air-play and attention from the media because they had released a classic record in the past, but at the time the public wasn't really paying attention, which is where the whole "irrelevance" thing comes from. American Idiot really had the effect of cementing the fact that they weren't just a big band but a great band, one that goes toe to toe with all the rock and roll heavy weights like other 90's heroes Nirvana and Metallica. GD really is something else, no other band has had the history that they do.
StuckWithInsomnia Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 I mentioned in my book (My Green Days: the story of a fan & a band) (available on Amazon btw ) that I thought one of the reasons Warning didn't have the album sale success of the previous albums was because Napster was at the peak of its popularity when Warning came out. No one, I mean NO ONE was buying CD's anymore. I got the entire album a week ahead of time and of course, didn't pay a dime. That being said, the pop punk thing was wearing out its welcome thanks to all the bands riding the coattails of Green Day, such as New Found Glory, Sum 41, SR-71. Not to say they're bad bands, but they gained popularity THANKS to Green Day and everytime you turned on the radio it was a pop punk song and people were kind of sick of it. Green Day produces a new sound and people who expected to hear the pop punk sound got something different and they didn't necessarily like it. American Idiot had a meaning, had a purpose, and was EXACTLY what the world needed to hear in 2004. I saw on TV a little while ago that the music industry made like 650 million dollars in 2001 and only like 250 million in 2011, so if no one bought CD's then, how much money did they make before Napster?
chichi Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 I saw on TV a little while ago that the music industry made like 650 million dollars in 2001 and only like 250 million in 2011, so if no one bought CD's then, how much money did they make before Napster? Both of those numbers seem pretty low.
Jet Taman Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 I saw on TV a little while ago that the music industry made like 650 million dollars in 2001 and only like 250 million in 2011, so if no one bought CD's then, how much money did they make before Napster? At $18 for a CD and $10-15 for a cassette, the record companies were rolling in it and often times the bands themselves weren't getting shit. Remember..this is before you could purchase individual songs off of iTunes. Cassette singles cost $5 and CD singles cost $8-10.
DannyDirnt Posted October 13, 2012 Posted October 13, 2012 Maybe I'm the only one but Warning is probably my favorite Green Day album. I think it's just really underrated. The backing vocals and bass in this album are perfect, and the songs are pretty catchy and good. As for their popularity, I can't judge since I was 4 at that time.
Brother Posted October 14, 2012 Posted October 14, 2012 I believe they were irrelevant in that era. But that irrelevance isn't a bad thing, really. If it wasn't for that irellevence, American idiot what followed would never had happen.
SynthwaveTrooper Posted October 14, 2012 Posted October 14, 2012 Insomniac and Nimrod were still popular, but Green Day did fade into the dark when warning came out... nobody cared that much until AI was released
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