Broadway Idiots
When did Green Day sell out? Was it on Seinfeld or American Idol? A Bono duet or namesake Rock Band? Broadway-bound this month, lets wander through the years of stacking dollars as Green Day readies its jock jams for the worlds biggest stage and another huge payday.
1990–39/Smooth The bands first effort and a solid (if amateurish) stab at combining Bay Area punk ethos with classic snot pop.
1992–Kerplunk Is the bonus cover of The Whos My Generation a hint at stadiums and theater stages to come?
1994–Dookie Heres the creative peak. Green Day jumps to a major label and makes punk tapes popular with kids waiting in Burger King drive-through lines across America. As a result, the band is banned from Gilman, the famed and boringly full of itself punk venue where it played its first gig.
1995–Insomniac Coming on the heels of the bands storyline in the fat kid/eating disorder classic Angus, Green Day beefs up the formula and compresses the guitars so much they could cause toothaches. The cover art references Dead Kennedys ( 1), but the songwriting on tracks like Brain Stew, with its 6th-grade, just-bought-a-Squire guitar riff, starts getting embarrassing.
1997–Nimrod Acoustic guitars? Heretics! Lets be clear: Selling out is not taking a major label deal, changing styles or putting your song in a commercial. Its making tracks like Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) and trying to pretend that youre still an autonomous act. Official jump-the-shark moment: When said track appeared in the Seinfeld finale clip show and then on my high school graduation T-shirt.
2000–Warning Take three years off and return sounding like Bon Jovi doing wedding karaoke. You want to be a minority? Even the fans werent buying this one. Third floor joints in Koreatown have better production value.
2004–American Idiot The preview single, a cover of I Fought the Law, premieres in an iTunes commercial that airs during the motherfucking Super Bowl. Songs for sporting events and prom appearances are at an all-time high while the band goes through Metallica-style therapy in preparation to make this record seem important and play more stadiums.
2009–21st Century Breakdown Corporate autopilot at its finest. Your lesson: Split songs into acts and you get to bring your shitty musical to Broadway.
2010–American Idiot on Broadway So here we are, the apex of a career turned awful. The band ignores its past by adapting chunks of its last two records for the stage. The original program sports essays about the history and importance of punk rock. Truly, if the band stopped trying to peddle this shit as authentic, we would leave the guys alone. They know musicals are way corny, but dont seem to care.