Are the ones you liked as a teenager the best because they're the ones you liked as a teenager? Yes, obviously. This isn't Beethoven.
Let's hear what the damned kids are listening to with The Top 13 Green Day Albums.
A more rhythm-based follow-up with old-school rock 'n' roll riffs and trad punk solos, I don't really know what they were going for or what the point is.
Fave: Wow! That's Loud
Ah yes, the back-to-basics credibility-seeking but inevitably past-it let-down part of the discography, right on cue. This first one has catchy moments, but it comes off so irritating. Listening as an adult feels like watching Nickelodeon or something, it's not aimed at me.
Fave: Stay the Night
Country-punk chillout, like an album of the slow ones from Nimrod, but less memorable. The most listenable of the trilogy in its bland inoffensiveness (punk as fuck!)
Fave: 8th Avenue Serenade
I still don't like it. It even takes me back to less fond teenage memories than the others, so I guess I was syncing up background music appropriately. I'll just listen to The Kinks.
Fave: Deadbeat Holiday
More focused and accomplished than they've been in a while, but nothing stood out on this first listen and I can't see myself bothering with a second. Very likely entirely a generation gap thing.
Fave: Forever Now
Generic indie Green Day was a nice break from shadow of former self punk Green Day, though its piss-taking brevity might be the most punk thing they've done in decades. I could even listen again, or I'll just listen to some adverts.
It is pretty smooth for punk, the primordial trio frequently breaking into harmonies and with boring drums meeting their minimum requirement of maintaining a rhythm all the way through. Only a few songs really stand out from the amiable fuzz, and those could fit on later albums as far as Nimrod at least. Good job, kids.
Fave: 16
They're getting longer and denser, which should be good value, but this is achieved with filler. I like all the melodic guitar flourishes, but it's short on memorable moments and the grand production misses the punch of the olden days. I'll just listen to The Who.
Fave: 21st Century Breakdown
They had enough material for a double album with all the B-sides from this era, or they could have streamlined the quality further by losing a couple of lesser songs, but I'm happy with the middle ground of a heaving mixed bag. No one would agree on the skippers anyway. Good memories, but some of it's boring.
Fave: Uptight
No doubt a milestone of my teens, if it hadn't had the bad luck to come out when I'd moved on from the poppy punks and already discovered concept albums. As a result, I've not listened to it as much as it deserves. It's really pretty good, but I'll probably never feel especially close to it or remember more than a few choruses.
Fave: Jesus of Suburbia
Back then, I didn't listen to this as often as the three that followed, but enough to lay the foundations for nostalgia trips. These days, it's the one I go back to the most, for that comparative freshness and its simple teenage authenticity. It's nicely varied, within reason, and all solid, apart from the stupid one, obviously.
Fave: Android
The harder follow-up to Dookie still sounds upbeat and just as catchy to me, whatever the background, even if some of it runs together and I still couldn't put a name to some of the songs after decades and countless listens. Even as someone who missed the LP and cassette eras, I've always considered this an album of two distinct halves and wondered why it didn't start at Side B.
Fave: Panic Song
I hadn't listened to many albums in the world when I borrowed this one (and most of those were Offspring), so trying to listen objectively today is a fool's errand. Other Green Day albums don't have much of a chance when it's already one of the best albums in the world, but they're welcome to try.
Fave: Burnout or most of the rest
