Green Day Dookie released

Dookie Green Day

Released: February 1, 1994 Peak: 2 US, 13 UK, 18 CN, 113 AU Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 0.9 UK, 20.0 world (includes US and UK), 28.34 EAS Genre: punk rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Burnout Having a Blast Chump Longview (2/1/94, 36 BA, 87 CB, 35 RR, 13 AR, 1 MR, 30 UK, 33 AU, 9 DF) Welcome to Paradise (9/24/94, 56 BA, 7 MR, 20 UK, 44 AU, 31 DF) Pulling Teeth Basket Case (7/16/94, 26 BA, 23 GR, 20 RR, 9 AR, 1 MR, 7 UK, 12 CN, 85 AU, 15 DF) She (4/15/95, 41 BA, 18 AR, 5 MR, 23 DF) Sassafras Roots When I Come Around (12/3/94, 6 BA, 4 RR, 2 AR, 1 MR, 27 UK, 3 CN, 7 AU, 7 DF) Coming Clean Emenius Sleepus In the End F.O.D./All by Myself Total Running Time: 39:35 The Players: Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar) Mike “Dirnt” Pritchard (bass Frank “Tré Cool” Wright (drums)

Rating: 4.353 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings) Quotable: “A stellar piece of modern punk that many tried to emulate but nobody bettered.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Band’s Early Years The punk-rock trio Green Day formed in Rodeo, California in 1987. The group, originally known as Sweet Children, was formed by the then-teenage singer/songwriter and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnt. In 1989 and 1990, the trio – with drummer John Kiffmeyer – released three EPs and their debut studio album. After replacing Kiffmeyer with Frank Edwin Wright III (aka “Tré Cool”, the group released their second album, Kerplunk, in 1991. It “brought them minor national attention with sales in the hundreds of thousands, a remarkable achievement for an indie-label act.” CS Major labels started courting them and the band signed with Reprise Records in 1993. “On their first couple records, they showed promise,” AM but Dookie, the band’s third album and major label debut, proved to be a landmark album. Breaking into the Mainstream Dookie launched Green Day into the mainstream. The trio “found success by fusing the anti-establishment nature of its punk rock roots with…catchy pop melodies and hooks.” CQ The album was “perfectly timed to arrive hot on the Doc Martens-clad heels of the grunge scene.” CQ Dookie “found a way to reinvigorate interest in the original punk legends by serving as an entry-level record and giving a voice to rebellious teens who didn’t actually have a lot to rebel against in the relatively placid mid-1990s.” CQ “Exploring everything from panic attacks to masturbation to bisexuality, the lyrics struck a chord with fans of all ages and positioned Green Day as the modern punk band for the masses.” CQ “They delivered a record that found Billie Joe Armstrong bursting into full flower as a songwriter, spitting out melodic ravers that could have comfortable sat alongside Singles Going Steady, but infused with an ironic self-loathing popularized by Nirvana, whose clean sound on Nevermind is also emulated here.” AM Sell Out? “The band was accused of ‘selling out’ by previous followers of the underground punk scene.” CQ It is important to understand that “the story of punk rock is an endless cycle of worship and accusation from the genre’s fan base [that] a band is either an unknown pioneer or a successful sellout, and there is very little room for negotiating an identity in the liminal space between. Perhaps the only punk band ever to find enduring popularity without being accused of selling out were British anti-darlings the Sex Pistols, who, ironically, were one big publicity gimmick from the very beginning.” CS Green Day, however, didn’t considered themselves punk but “good old-fashioned rock and roll.” CS Raw’s Sylvie Simmons described them as “a bright, crazy, brilliant cartoon with fast, tight, good-time songs>” CS They were “supersonic hardcore bubblegum brats.” CS They were “punk put through a dayglo California blender that’s more skateboards than Sex Pistols, more sex than social conscience, more Beavis & Butthead than Sid & Nancy, more Dickies and Ramones than Black Flag and the Germs.” CS A Revolutionary ‘90s Album Regardless of how the band was labeled, Dookie became “one of the defining albums of the 1990s and punk rock in general.” WK They “were simply the most important thing to happen to rock music in the 1990s after Nirvana.” CS “Like Nevermind, this was accidental success, the sound of a promising underground group suddenly hitting its stride just as they got their first professional, big-budget, big-label production. Really, that’s where the similarities end, since if Nirvana were indebted to the weirdness of indie rock, Green Day were straight-ahead punk revivalists through and through.” AM However, “where Nirvana had weight, Green Day are deliberately adolescent here, treating nearly everything as joke and having as much fun as snotty punkers should.” AM They “twisted the Seattle grunge formula on its head, turning the weighty themes of Nirvana and Pearl Jam into fodder for tightly controlled wisecracking.” CS Green Day crafted “catchy riffs on crunchy, treble-heavy guitars that provided a lighter counterbalance to the moody angst of Seattle grunge.” CS Dookie brought “melodic rock sound to the mainstream with relatable lyrics” WK about “boredom, anxiety, relationships,” WK “masturbation, sexual orientation, …divorce, domestic abuse and ex-girlfriends” WK “that reached a universal audience.” WK The themes were heavily based on singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s personal experiences. WK It sent “a wave of imitators up the charts” AM that included Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, and Sum 41, but Dookie stood out as “a stellar piece of modern punk that many tried to emulate but nobody bettered.” AM In 2017, Rolling Stone named it the greatest pop-punk album of all time. WK The Songs Here are insights into individual tracks. “Longview” The first single released from the album was Longview. Armstrong said the song’s main character was based on himself during his time living in Rodeo, California. He said there was nothing to do there. The character “does nothing but watch television, smoke mariuana, and masturbate, and has little motivation to change these habits despite tiring of the same cycle of behaviors.” WK The song features a signature bassline from Mike Dirnt that he wrote under the influence of LSD. WK “Basket Case” The second single was Basket Case. Like its predecessor, it topped the alternative rock chart and was a top 40 hit on the Billboard airplay charts. “The song deals with Armstrong’s anxiety attacks and feelings of ‘going crazy’ prior to being diagnosed with a panic disorder.” WK “Welcome to Paradise” Welcome to Paradise first appeared on Kerplunk!, the band’s second studio album. It was one of three earlier songs that the band re-recorded, but it was the only one to make the album. “It bears noticeable improvements in sound quality.” WK It was the third single released from Dookie. “She” The song She was written by Armstrong about Amanda, a former girlfriend. She showed him a feminist poem with the same title and he in turn wrote lyrics and showed them to her. The song is similar to “Basket Case” but slightly faster. It was released as the fourth single from the album. “When I Come Around” “They demonstrate a bit of depth with When I Come Around, but that just varies the pace slightly, since the key to this is their flippant, infectious attitude – something they maintain throughout the record.” AM It was the fifth and final single from the album. It was inspired by Adrienne, Armstrong’s former girlfriend and future wife. Armstong left her after they had an argument to spend time alone.

Resources: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” CS Chris Smith (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. Pages 227-8. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Links: First posted 3/28/2011; last updated 11/29/2024.

Hüsker Dü Zen Arcade released

Zen Arcade Hüsker Dü

Released: July 3, 1984 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: punk rock/college rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Something I Learned Today Broken Home, Broken Heart Never Talking to You Again Chartered Trips Dreams Reoccurring Indecision Time Hare Krsna Beyond the Threshold Pride I’ll Never Forget You The Biggest Lie What’s Going On Masochism World Standing by the Sea Somewhere One Step at a Time Pink Turns to Blue (11 CO) Newest Industry Monday Will Never Be the Same Whatever The Tooth Fairy and the Princess Turn on the News (19 CO) Reoccurring Dreams Total Running Time: 70:09 The Players: Bob Mould (vocals, guitar, etc.) Grant Hart (drums, percussion,vocals, etc.) Greg Norton (bass) Dez Cadena (vocals on “What’s Going On”)

Rating: 4.379 out of 5.00 (average of 17 ratings) Quotable: “The record that exploded the limits of hardcore and what it could achieve.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

A Brief History of the Band Hüsker Dü (named after a Danish board game meaning “Do You Remember?”) formd in 1979 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The trio consisted of singer and guitarist Bob Mould, drummer and singer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton. They “set out to deafen their audiences with fuming speed, volume, and distortion” CS as a hardcore-punk band who would be embraced as a staple of the ‘80s college-rock community. They “developed a rare cohesion, an all-for-one ensemble attack that made the music sound larger than the sum of its parts.” TM Their first album, Land Speed Record, was a live recording released in 1982. Their debut studio album, Everything Falls Apart, followed the next year. Both were “little more than punishing assaults on the ears, each song falling into the next with little discernible pause, transition, or variation.” CS 1983 also saw the release of their EP Metal Circus. Then came their critically-acclaimed Zen Arcade. The Impact of Zen Arcade “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade on the American rock underground in the ‘80s.” AM “They recorded more accomplished albums (Warehouse, Flip Your Wig) but Zen Arcade was the Du at their most unleashed, expansive and emotionally devastating.” WR This is “the record that exploded the limits of hardcore and what it could achieve.” AM “You can hear their ambitions clawing against the strictures of loud-hard-fast. The most ferocious psychedelia ever put on vinyl.” VB It “dips its toes into nearly every rock subgenre available, from acoustic experiments to psychedelic musings to electronic swirls, without ever letting go of its seething hardcore base.” CS “Zen Arcade and Hüsker Dü have been credited by nearly every alternative band of note – including Nirvana, Green Day, the Foo Fighters, the Pixies, the Dead Milkmen, and their Minneapolis brethren Sonic Youth – as a major influence, rivaled only by R.E.M. as pioneers in the formation of the alternative sound that would dominate pop toward the end of the century.” CS The Loose Concept and the Talents on Display This is “a loose concept album about a runaway kid who encounters unpleasantness out in the unforgiving real world.” TM It is “a highly pressurized tour of the adolescent turmoils” TM with “the requisite indie-rock elements, including rototilling guitars, and lacerating, possessed-by-demons backbeats and vocal wails so besieged that words seem superfluous.” TM The album is marked by “a considerable leap forward in lyrical talent by both Mould and Hart” CS that is complemented by “the seemingly incompatible blend of harmonic vocals and punk-metal attack.” CS It “gave the band a unique sound that was part ferocious punk and part west-coast rock melody.” CS Blueprint for the Late ‘80s Regeneration of Rock “Along with the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, this kick-started/blueprinted the late ‘80s regeneration of rock.” WR Both “trailblazed a whole new way for pop and noise to coexist. Their fusion of folkadelic yearning and foaming fury, bleeding hearts and bleeding ears, spawned the Dinosaur Jr/Nirvana school of ‘zen apathy/bewilderness rock,’ and was a pivotal influence on My Bloody Valentine et al too.” WR “Without turning down the volume, Hüsker Dü try everything – pop songs, tape experiments, acoustic songs, pianos, noisy psychedelia. Hüsker Dü willed themselves to make such a sprawling record – as the liner notes state, the album was recorded and mixed within 85 hours and consists almost entirely of first takes.” AM “That reckless, ridiculously single-minded approach does result in some weak moments – the sound is thin and the instrumentals drag on a bit too long – but it’s also the key to the success of Zen Arcade. Hüsker Dü sound phenomenally strong and possessed, as if they could do anything.” AM The Songs “The sonic experimentation is bolstered by Mould and Hart’s increased sense of songcraft. Neither writer is afraid to let his pop influences show on Zen Arcade, which gives the songs – from the unrestrained rage of Something I Learned Today and the bitter, acoustic Never Talking to You Again to the eerie Pink Turns to Blue and anthemic Turn on the News – their weight. It’s music that is informed by hardcore punk and indie rock ideals without being limited by them.” AM There’s also “the scalding Indecision Time” TM and the “momentary sweetness…[of] the timeless shrug Whatever.” TM “The 13-minute all live raga-improv blizzard Reoccurring Dreams that closes this magnificent double didn’t, however, ignite a Mahavishnu revival (shame!)” WR

Reviews: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Pages 374-5. CS Chris Smith (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. Pages 176-7. VB Vibe (Dec. 1999). “100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century,” pages 154-164. WK Wikipedia WR The Wire (June 1992). “The 100 Most Important Records Ever Made” Related DMDB Links: First posted 3/20/2010; last updated 3/17/2025.