Green Day “Revolution Radio”
In the summer of 1993, having spent freshman year cramming my way through Pavement’s back catalog and nursing an infection from a botched nose piercing, I got a job as a resident advisor for a summer arts program at Bennington College. I was not a student at Bennington but I hoped Vermont would serve as welcome relief from my actual college experience. You see, the Indie kids back in Providence were tough — confusing a Palace Brothers album with a Palace Songs record would result in mild shaming. Ignorance of limited edition Guided by Voices’ seven inches was punishable by extreme eye rolls. Through daily trips to In Your Ear and back issues of The Trouser Press, I survived. But just barely. And, eventually, I would manage to thrive. But, as it turned out, none of that pretense and obscurantism prepared me for my trials at Bennington that summer.
For thirty days, while herding wonderfully awkward, highly creative high schoolers, who still dreamed of being poets and watercolorists, I was confronted by a fellow RA — a senior at Bennington — who brandished his knowledge of contemporary Punk music like a Harvard PHD. My naivete on all things Operation Ivy and Mr. T Experience was apparently problematic, but forgivable. Ignorance of Green Day, however, was not.
If I appeared guilty and ashamed to my fellow RAs, it was because I was, in fact, both guilty and ashamed. I’d never heard of Green Day. Knew relatively little about Lookout! Records. “Kerplunk” was not a word in my vocabulary. Nevertheless, my vegan, straight edge Punk accuser made it supremely clear that Green Day were a monumentally important band — the very future of Punk. He explained to me that they were the realest of real deals — torch carriers for the Pistols and The Clash. Because he was older and a year round Bennington student, I was at a disadvantage. My appreciation of Sonic Youth meant nothing to this guy. And because he was surrounded by fellow Bennington classmates, and because I was not a Bennington student and because he was older and monumentally more confident than I was, 1993 was the summer that I was forced into seclusion on account of my Green Day ignorance.
Obviously, my shitty, lonely summer in Vermont was not Green Day’s fault. And yet, I partly blamed them. I refused to buy a copy of “Kerplunk” or, its predecessor, “39/Smooth” — mostly out of spite for my bully. I could have easily gone into town and bought either album on compact disc. I was in town, at the local record store, at least once a week. But I averted my gaze from the “G” section. The friends of my enemy would be no friends of mine.
A month after I arrived in Vermont, I returned to college and settled into my sophomore year and got back to my Matador and Sub Pop and Touch & Go. Everything was going fine until very early in 1994, when I put on the radio in my dorm room and heard WBRU play a song that was so infectious, so catchy, so undeniable that I literally stopped short in my tracks, waiting to hear who was responsible for such an obvious masterwork. And that’s when I heard the DJ say: “That was “Basket Case,” by Green Day, from their forthcoming album “Dookie” out next month on Reprise Records.”
Within a month, I’d seen the video for “Basket Case” no less than a hundred times on MTV, each time as delighted and astounded as the previous time. The fluorescent colors. The mildly offensive depiction of opiated, catatonic patients coming to life when they attach to their instruments. The burst of the guitar, then drums and, finally, bass. The way the three boys looked so completely adorable, like cartoon doll versions of Punks, but stripped of the safety pins and mohawks. And then, of course, there was the song itself — a flawless three minutes of (basically) three chords, at once familiar and timeless. The way the singer sang from so high up in his nose. The manner in which the self-loathing was both a silly cliche and a genuine anthem. I absolutely loved “Basket Case.”
Apparently, I was not alone. “Basket Case” was an absolute monster of a hit, the sort of song that takes over the airwaves and unexpectedly crosses formats, making its way from the Modern Rock charts onto the Rock charts and then, finally, the Pop charts. But obviously, that song was neither the beginning nor was it the end. “Dookie” was wall to wall hits — fourteen tracks (fifteen if you count the hidden one at the end) and, truly, all killer no filler. It marked the conflation of Pop Punk with Alternative and, similarly, the conflation of Alternative with “youth culture.” Unlike Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Green Day was intentionally fun(ny). Unlike Nirvana, Green Day was the opposite of serious. And unlike Pavement and Sonic Youth, you did not need to be in college to appreciate them. Green Day were the commercial “Urban Outfitting” of Grunge’s brooding and Lollapalooza’s bohemianism.
In part because they were more visually (and musically) cuddly than revolutionary, Green Day changed the trajectory of Modern Rock in the Nineties. “Dookie” went on to become a certified Diamond record (meaning that it sold more than ten million copies in the U.S.) and the single greatest force towards the mainstreaming of Punk and Emo. Blink 182, Fallout Boy, Good Charlotte, Jimmy Eat World and thousands of lesser bands have different fortunes without Green Day and “Dookie.”
The suddenness of their breakthrough was breathtaking in many ways. But it was not the the speed of their ascent or the unlikeliness of their success that struck me. Rather, it was the incongruity between the band that I saw and heard and the one I imagined based on the description from my Vermont nemesis. That previous summer, I had pictured a band that looked and sounded Hardcore — pummeling, shaved heads, muscular, angry. Something in between Minor Threat and The Dead Kennedys. But Green Day neither looked nor did they sound anything like those bands. They were the opposite of scary — much closer to Hot Topic Punks than to Hot Water Music. And what struck me most was how “Pop” their “Pop Punk” was. If Green Day had been five years older, they’d have even been accused of being — gasp — a “Power Pop” band. To my ears, Green Day was an unabashed Pop band.
Well, maybe not completely unabashed. They picked their nose on camera (though it still presented as cute). And they paid homage to their Berkeley Punk roots — to Lookout! Records and Operation Ivy and the like. But, whereas in the previous decade Punk and its offshoots had gone underground, in the Nineties and with Green Day, Punk was everywhere. It wasn’t simply about The Warped Tour. It was eventually The White Stripes, The Hives and the Garage Rock Revival. It was also Panic at the Disco, Paramore and Pop Emo. Without Green Day, none of that happens in the same way or to the same degree.
And while their gargantuan success and influence brought joy to so many, it was not without its unintended consequences. The rise of Pop Punk begot MTVs “Rocks and Jocks.” It begot Blink 182 playing for over-served spring breakers in Daytona Beach. It placed Punk in the hands of millions, many of which were the wrong hands. Many of which were hands that wanted to punch or grope more than they wanted to sing or dance or protest or flip the bird. While the eventuality of their cosmic impact could not have been known in 1994, two things were obvious from the start: First, that Green Day was a tremendous (and tremendously important) band. And second, that the “Pop” in Pop Punk was an ironic misdirection — that the genre was never actually meant to be popular.
Though many would point to Third Eye Blind or The Goo Goo Dolls as the blandification of Modern Rock, Green Day was the forebear in that they made something which had previously seemed unusual — transgressive even — sound completely normal. They represented both the apex of Nineties Alt and also the beginning of its end. And while the wake they left behind created momentum for for Pop Emo and Pop Screamo (both of which made Nu Metal a growing concern) for the better part of a decade, Green Day remained in rarefied air, above the fray (and The Fray), as the first and the greatest of Punk’s second generation.
“American Idiot,” released a decade after “Dookie,” was a legacy-cementing validation as well as an obvious end to the band’s second chapter. The album sold many millions of copies — during an era when such an accomplishment was rare — and it produced four hit singles, two of which were on the languid side of “mid-tempo.” And yet, the album’s title track was still fast, loud and impassioned, their three chords still worked just fine, and, with the second Bush administration, they had a new set of easy targets.
But for all of its success, “American Idiot” had the feeling of a swan song. Perhaps even more so than “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and “Wake Me Up When September Comes” sounded like finality — like a band doubting their future and regretting their past. Following the Grammy Awards and MTV Video Awards in 2013, feeling the heavy burden of their crown, Green Day took some time away from the spotlight.
In between their second and third chapters, the band released a Garage Rock album under the name Foxboro Hot Tubs and slowly, but surely, began working with super-producer, Butch Vig on the follow up to “American Idiot.” Long before that album arrived, however, the band ended their relationship with Lookout! Records, the stalwart indie who’d released their first two albums. Sadly, the move to pull their catalog from Lookout! — a wrenching decision necessitated after years of slow and non-payment of royalties — proved to be a death knell for the label.
The Berkeley-based company, founded in 1987, simply could not manage the growth and ensuing fluctuations precipitated by Green Day’s success. It was one thing to write checks with four zeros on them. It was another — much more difficult thing — to balance those smaller acts and more modest investments with the six and seven figure royalties due to Green Day. Eventually, through some combination of good intentions, less good management, and forced beyond their control Lookout! Was forced to give Green Day their catalog back. Shortly after, close up shop altogether.
The demise of Lookout! coincided with the buckling of Green Day. “21st Century Breakdown,” from 2009 and their trio of albums (“Uno,” “Dos,” & “Tres”) from 2012 failed critically and commercially. Moreover, those records signaled something that fans had suspected for years — something was not quite right with Billie Joe Armstrong.
Suspicions were confirmed in September of 2012 when, during a performance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, Billy Joe had a very spectacular, very public meltdown while on stage. Within days, it was announced, to exactly no one’s surprise, that Armstrong was seeking help for his substance abuse. Six years after they were the biggest Rock band in the world, thirteen years after their appearance at the ill-fated Woodstock 99, eighteen years after they first broke out with “Longview” and nineteen years after their Punk bonafides were weaponized against me by a fledgling college poet, Green Day was, once again, a band with uncertain prospects.
Green Day’s twelfth studio album, “Revolution Radio,” was released in 2016 — the year of Donald Trump’s election and at a time when album sales had been usurped by track streams. All three members of the band were well into their forties by the time of the record’s release, meaning that the snotty charms of their youth would not play the same. Self-loathing and fuck you's present differently in middle-aged millionaires than they do in youth. And so, for the first time in their career, Green Day was in the unenviable position of having to question both their form and their function.
And yet, “Revolution Radio” was not a sharp turn or a step back or a leap forward. The band’s first new album since their unloved trilogy and since Armstrong’s meltdown, was a relatively casual affair — self-produced, recorded secretly for a couple of years, and released without teasers or fanfare. It was not promoted as a “return to form,” because that would imply a raising of stakes. Nor was it presented as a major change, because that was anathema for Green Day. It was described as being “down the middle” — something in between what you’d expect and what you’d hope for from the band. Reading between the lines, “Revolution Radio” seemed like a shoring up of lost ground — like downside protection. Yes — their self-loathing had become middle-aged ennui. True — their Bush administration had become the new far right. And sure — their mainstream malaise had become hyper and social mediation. But otherwise, for the most part, Green Day wanted to confirm that they were still absolutely Green Day.
For the first four minutes, however, it seems that Green Day also really wants to be The Who. “Somewhere Now” is a mix of parts — some acoustic, some orchestral, some anthemic — but all nicked from “Tommy” and then reassembled into a four minute epic about having everything and feeling nothing; about a sense of constant distraction and wishing you were anywhere but here even though here is precisely where you need to be. More than it is essential — or even successful — “Somewhere Now” is impactful. It’s ambitious but also an unmistakable coming to terms with time and place.
From there — and for more than half the album — Green Day is off to the races, doing their thing. And doing it remarkably well. Though more eclectic and less irrepressible than their best work, “Revolution Radio” is also reminder of how far the band could take the same basic chords they employed two decades earlier. Other than perhaps The Feelies, I cannot think of another band who got so much from such a limited palette. It’s not exactly three chords, but it’s not much more. E5 chord. B5 chord. C#5 chord. G#5 chord. A5 chord. D5 chord. Same nasal delivery. No lead guitar. Occasional drum fills. Bass slightly out front. Some songs slower. Most faster. As Brian Fontana said in “Anchorman”: “Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.”
It definitely works on “Say Goodbye,” which is Jock Rock in the way that “Seven Nation Army” is, but with more oohs and ahhs and something about how power corrupts. The point of the song is almost besides the point — it makes me want to clap my hands and stomp my feet. And it also works on “Outlaws,” the requisite power ballad about young Punks tearing up suburbia in the Eighties. It’s a wistful, charming song for the Class of ‘94, perfect if paired with a shopping trip to Urban Outfitters or a screening of “Reality Bites.”
But the formula really works on the album’s title track, a glorious three minutes (on the button) of faster, louder Power Pop tucked under a (rare) lead guitar hook borrowed (stolen) from at least three Clash songs. No matter the actual source of the melody — it’s a winner. Taut, melodic and full of breathless stops and starts. And though lyrically concerned with social media and cable news, it succeeds in its medium more than its message. Its ideology is practically a given. Because it's a Green Day song, I know its point is sharp.
Generally speaking, Green Day avoids catastrophe on “Revolution Radio.” They pick their enemies — mass-shooters, social media, cable news, unlawful enforcement — knowing less about the subjects and more about their audience. And when they veer into nostalgia and introspection (as they frequently do), it reads more like fan service than solipsism. But, I never listened to Green Day for what they stood for or what they had to say as much as I did for the force of their sound and the ingenuity of their craft. And, both of those virtues remain intact.
Which is not to suggest that “Revolution Radio” is a masterpiece, or even a great album, for that matter. The first single, “Bang Bang,” is shrill for my taste, the sort of song that excels at grabbing your attention but struggles to reward it. And while “Troubled Times” is noticeably heavier and darker than the rest of the record, it comes off as an instant cliche, to the point of being glib. It’s musically dull — something that Green Day rarely is. Moreover, it’s objectively naive — and not in the cute way that young Punks can be.
They do, however, redeem themselves one song later on “Forever Now,” the three part, seven minute penultimate track that probably should not work but really does. Held together by deft transitions and bittersweet harmonies, it’s the sort of epic you might expect from Weezer, or even Car Seat Headrest, but not Green Day. And yet, they pull it off. It’s the same basic riffs, but with alterations that are just different enough. It’s the same ideas — disillusionment, self-loathing and, ultimately, delirious joy — but strung together for dramatic effect. It’s the same guys doing the same thing they’ve done for years. And while the third movement is basically the same melody from John Fogerty’s “Rock and Roll Girls,” I don’t mind. For seven minutes, Green Day sounds reborn.
Before I’d ever heard the music, I did not want to like Green Day. And even after I heard them and could not deny them, I did not want to love Green Day. Whereas The Sex Pistols seemed capable of anything and The Clash capable of everything, Green Day seemed only capable of Pop pleasure. Ultimately, my resistance was futile. From the very beginning, Green Day was undeniable. And yet, many years after I accepted and appreciated them, I still presumed that their act would not age well. There was a reason why mohawks were startling on adults; why Fugazi doesn’t make new music; and why John Lydon politely mourned Queen Elizabeth.
But thirty plus years later, Green Day is still at it. And they are still kind of awesome. And I think that means that — back in the summer of 1993 at Bennington College — I was wrong and that asshole was right.