Green Day Doesn't Suck, You Suck
By Matt /Aug. 10, 2016 / Comments
In Defense of Green Day.
As part of Consequence of Sound's monthly column titled Punk as Fuck, writer Patrick Brennan discusses, in his eye, the issues in punk music and culture. With Green Day's imminent release of "BANG BANG" tomorrow, Brennan uses this month's column to make the case that Green Day doesn't in fact suck, despite the critics, who are the ones that actually suck.
No band wears the dreaded “sell out” tag more brazenly than Green Day. It would be one thing if they had quietly renounced their punk credibility back when they put out 1994’s Dookie and sailed off into a sunset of cocaine and cashmere bathrobes. But nearly every artistic decision Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool have made in the subsequent two decades seems to openly mock the very idea of punk credibility.
Brennan, using humor and clever thoughts, walks through each of the band's releases and briefly examines how each "can be seen as a reaction against the one immediately preceding it," how it fits the band's mold and how it is viewed in the "punk" community.
With the release of “Bang Bang” tomorrow, Green Day once again have a chance to rewrite their narrative. The mere fact that we can depend on it being different from anything that’s come before shouldn’t be taken for granted. For a genre that takes pride in fucking shit up, punk can be alarmingly conservative when it comes to inching away from those treasured three chords. Green Day aren’t afraid to blow it all up and start again, and they don’t pay attention when those young, dumb trust-fund punks cry foul. It might not be the stuff of revolution, but it’s better than anything else on the radio.
I highly encourage you to read the entire article as it is a fantastic read and is extremely well written.
