Green Day moves away from pure punk past
By TIM COLLINS
Scene Music Critic
In a month where record sales look like they will be dominated by rock groups like U2 and Radiohead, those Bay Area punk rockers, Green Day, are back with their fourth major label album release, Warning.
The band has had an impressive string of hits since 1994's breakthrough smash, Dookie, and it had its biggest hit with the acoustic single "Time Of Your Life" in 1998 from the Nimrod album. But this latest album finds the band going in a totally new direction and, in some ways, abandoning its true punk background.
The album's opening track, "Warning," shows how different the album sounds from their past material. The track is a four minute acoustic song in which lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, warns the listener not to "shut up and be the victim of authority." The song actually works really well and even though it may not remind listeners of the band's earlier albums, it is one of the better songs on the album. "Hold On" is anchored by a great acoustic guitar riff and a harmonica and sounds great.
Some of the experiments do not work as well as "Warning" or "Hold On," though. "Misery" is a complete failure. The song tries to be a little too deep as they sing of "the catastrophic hymns from yesterday of misery." For this band, it just does not work.
"Macy's Day Parade" does a better job than "Misery," but the band's attempts at acoustic songs with violins in the background have gotten a little bit old by this point — it is the last track on the album. But Billie Joe still does deliver some of the better lyrics from the album on the song when he sings, "I'm thinking about a brand new hope, the one that I've never known. 'Cause now I know it's all I ever wanted."
The band still does whip-out some of those classic three minute punk songs, but on this album, they seem a little bit more produced and polished than before. "Blood, Sex and Booze" sounds like it will just scream out, but actually ends up sounding like the band is holding back. Green Day needs to turn up the amp another notch on this album.
But the band still does achieve some great successes on Warning. "Church on Sunday" is right-on. Billie Joe talks about a serious commitment that is headed for marriage ("If you live with me, I'll die for you and this compromise.") "Waiting" also stands out. This song's sound is instantly catchy and is driven by the pounding drums of Tre Cool.
The best song on the album is also the first single, "Minority." The song is already No. 1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Singles chart, and is one of the best songs of the band's career. It opens with a quiet acoustic arrangement before Billie Joe screams out: "I want to be the minority. I don't need your authority. Down with the moral majority." The verses feature some of the most catchy lyrics in recent rock, and after one listen, get stuck in the listener's head.
Warning is not a failure for Green Day; the band is just heading in a new direction and has not quite figured out exactly what they want to do with it yet. It is a good step for the band, showing that it does not just want to be has-been punk rockers.
But it is a far cry from the pure punk album that Rancid released this summer, and also nowhere near the power of The Replacements' Tim, the album that shows the best transition a punk band has ever made to more quiet sound.
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, October 10, 2000
