E. Spevack Green Day

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-456-7
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

Green Day are one of rock history's greatest and most successful bands. Singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool have been together creating rock music with a punk heart for over three decades. The trio has reigned supreme, shattering previously conceived notions of how commercially successful a punk rock band can be, by helping extend the boundaries of the genre by adding excellent pop/rock songwriting. Green Day harnessed alternative music's creativity with a passion and fire that ignited two of rock's best albums, the influential Dookie, which sold 20 million copies, and the culturally important rock opera American Idiot, which sold 16 million and went on to become a Broadway show.
In their 30-plus years, Green Day revolutionized rock musically and lyrically, inspiring countless bands. During the 1990s, they lead the pop-punk charge, and in the 2000s, they inspired a second generation of fans and bands through a lyrically intelligent and musically complex style of hard rock. Green Day: On Track takes a journey through the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame band's career, analyzing every album and song in their remarkable catalogue.

William E. Spevack has been published in the magazines Laptop, CPU, and PC Upgrade as well as the music website AlternativeNation.net. His first book, Keep On Shining: A Guide Through the Music of Love & Arthur Lee, was published in December 2021. He is a Bard graduate and a passionate music fan, who enjoys writing about music, playing sports, playing keyboards and reading music history books that focus on the music specifically. He lives in New York City.

Autoren/Hrsg.

E. Spevack, William

Leseproben

Chapter 2

39/Smooth (1990)

Personnel:

Billie Joe Armstrong: lead vocals, guitar

Mike Dirnt: bass, backing vocals

John Kiffmeyer: drums, percussion, backing vocals

Producer: Andy Ernst, Green Day

Recorded at Art Of Ears studio, San Francisco, California

Label: Lookout

Release date: 13 April 1990

Chart: US: –

‘Here we go again/Infatuation touches me/Just when I thought that it was ending,’ Billie Joe busts out vocally on ‘Going To Pasalacqua,’ wearing his heart on his sleeve for a second record. Green Day’s debut album is like the 1000 Hours EP musically and lyrically, yet the odd title was too obscure a reference for a fan to guess at. Mike Dirnt explained to Flipside in 1990: ‘It’s named after Billie’s brother because we recorded it on the day he turned 39, but he’s a smooth character.’

The brevity of the recording sessions indicated how the band knew the songs completely, taking them from the stage to the studio. They needed just 22 hours to finish the album over the last days of 1989 and opening days of 1990. They were now familiar with the recording studio, and knew producer/ engineer Andy Ernst, who’d already recorded their debut EP, which only cost $675 to record.

Musically they continued down the exact path started on 1,000 Hours, performing concise lo-fi pop-punk songs fast and loud with plenty of guitar distortion. Generally, the vocal melodies are the strongest feature since the arrangements are simple. The lyrics are elementary though resonant, and the band is not ambitious in any way – lacking flair and dynamics. They get into the song, stick to the song, and get out. Lyrically, Billie Joe is pining for a girl – playing his role as the teen lovebird protagonist.

39/Smooth was issued on vinyl in 1990 and reissued on CD in 1991 with their first two EPs 1000 Hours and Slappy – the latter recorded a week after the album was released. The 1991 compilation 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours has sold 2,000,000 copies worldwide and was certified gold in the US and UK.

Side A

‘At The Library’ (Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

Billie Joe Armstrong would rather read women’s looks than books. Going to the library and then singing about it with your punk-rock fans listening is a common tradition – but only in an alternate universe! ‘At The Library’ is like a book you can’t put down. The verses and choruses are so catchy, and the nerdy bookworm lyrics bleed indie emo. It’s an irresistible slice of punky pop/rock. Dirnt’s bass, flirts with the vocal melody, and Kiffmeyer holds steady, only slowing down for the brief bridge.

The track represents Green Day’s younger days well. Usually, punk-music teen tales are pimply, puss-filled pissing matches attempting to see which ear of a listener they can deafen first. But ‘At The Library’ has none of the vocal aggression – just a 17-year-old kid singing about hanging out in the library to get his school work done, instead peering over his textbook to eye that special someone he’s targeting for romance. Our protagonist is out of luck as her boyfriend arrives to pick her up, and they leave the library together. ‘What makes me feel so much pain that makes me go insane?,’ Billie Joe sings even before his library love leaves with her beau. If we were to use the library’s system, it’s as if the singer can borrow a book like he borrowed eye contact, but can never keep the book or the girl. Oddly, the song is listed with the subtitle ‘With Waba Sé Wasca.’ The subtitle was dropped when ‘At the Library’ was listed for the compilation. Though Billie Joe wrote the lyric, John Kiffmeyer lived the tale, as he told Flipside in 1990: ‘Yo, I went through literally the exact thing that happened in the song. There’s this girl a grade above me. She’s really pretty, I wanted to go up to her and start talking to her, but I could never figure out what to say or the right time to say anything. Just recently, I found out she’s dating my friend’s friend.’

‘Don’t Leave Me’ (Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

More metallic shards fly out at the listeners when they hear the speedy ‘Don’t Leave Me,’ but they can dodge the pieces as they headbang to another resonant rhythm. Kiffmeyer drills in the beat like a construction worker, Dirnt goes the forceful punk bass route, and Armstrong sends out long streams of aggressive guitar. Unfortunately, the verse melody isn’t strong, and there’s no hook on the refrain – Billie Joe spitting out words without shaping the words to the music. The stop/start dynamics here would remain a crucial element in the band’s sound, but double-tracked vocals would be replaced by Mike Dirnt’s harmonies.

The narrator finds himself in a troubled relationship, like when two love birds are no longer singing but chirping about misery. ‘I feel my mind is going insane’ continues the active sanity gauge.

‘I Was There’ (Lyrics: Kiffmeyer; Music: Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

This choice is a bright, optimistic number holding one of the album’s best melodies. The quirky guitar solo leaps from 1960s rock to metal, Mike joins in vocally, and Al Sobrante is voraciously hungry on drums, adding dramatic cymbal crashes on the choruses. The tempo change into the bridge and Dirnt’s praiseworthy bass effort on the coda, are highlights.

The band works up the tune, and Kiffmeyer writes a poignant reflection on his youth. Many fans picked up on the irony of early nostalgic feelings from such a young band. Kiffmeyer told Flipside in 1990: ‘It’s about being sad about the past. It’s not saying it was better back then, it’s just your frame of reference.’

Unlike so many that remember their youth through rose-colored glasses, Kiffmeyer understood the balance of the past, present and future, and his confidence shone through on lyrics like, ‘There’s no doubt about who I am, I always have tomorrow.’ Al Sobranté – as John was nicknamed – is sure his future will provide many more memorable moments and people. The faith in the future and the platter of experience, is a major contrast to Billie Joe’s innocent songs of pessimism. Sobranté wrote a song of experience, while Armstrong wrote songs of inexperience.

‘Disappearing Boy’ (Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

The melodic ‘Disappearing Boy’ has a chorus hook that slowly pierces our skin before digging into the flesh as it heads to the bone. In other words, it’s one of their first massively-irresistible hooks. They smartly slow down for the bridge, so Armstrong can get reflective before going quiet like his guitar. The song kicks back into gear with a solo-less guitar break, before double-timing back towards one final fantastic chorus go-around. Dirnt is somewhat quiet, allowing space for Kiffmeyer’s busy playing.

Though the song could be about that library girl from ‘At The Library,’ with lines like ‘I see her and she’s with him/I turn around and then I’m gone,’ the protagonist is opening his world further for listeners to visit. He feels like that ignored womanless wallflower at parties, and begins to wonder where he belongs in life. ‘I vanished from all your joy/When I walk in crowded rooms/I feel as if it’s my doom/I know I don’t belong,’ implies he’s more comfortable in the library.

‘Green Day’ (Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

Yes, it’s Green Day’s officially-sanctioned anthem, with an intro swimming in bubbling-bong sound effects. But there’s a reason why it’s not one of their most well-known or acclaimed tracks – it’s lacking lyrically and melodically, hanging its hat on a serviceable verse hook. After a mediocre breakdown and guitar noodle, it’s back with force into the punkish heart of this ode to pot. There’s no psychedelia within its walls.

Kiffmeyer may be the star of the song, relying on lots of drum rolls for a mighty effort. Still very new to lyric writing, Billie Joe doesn’t provoke much visually with his ‘White mist hits the ground’ and ‘Sounds of moving insects’ lines, eventually tying them to a woman he’s attracted to. Billie Joe told Time:

I wrote a song called ‘Green Day’ because I was smoking a lot of dope. It’s basically a song about staring up at the ceiling, thinking about a girl and being stoned. Our drummer put ‘Green Day’ on his jacket and said, ‘Maybe we should call the band that’, and I said, ‘That’s a good idea.’

Side B

‘Going To Pasalacqua’ (Armstrong, Dirnt, Kiffmeyer)

This propulsive and exhilarating song has one of Green Day’s greatest intros. Billie Joe sings, ‘Here we go again,’ unable to hold his emotion before the band smashes us in the face with their most confident, aggressive playing; a thunderous, rousing performance, surfing on fantastic hooks. The awe- inspiring combination of melody and power, shows their talent and potential. A fun, uptempo, pop-punk track with metallic flourishes that hit all the right spots, it’s another album highlight. The band continually double-down after a...