If you were born after 1995, you may not know that Green Day was the ultimate punk-rock band of the late 90s. Along with bands like blink-182 and The Offspring, Green Day are responsible for driving punk-rock to the forefront of the music world and introducing its raw energy to the masses. Green Day have sold over 85 million copies worldwide and their album Dookie remains to this day the most-sold punk album ever and holds a place on Rolling Stone’s list of Top 500 albums of all time.
The day we sat down with Billie Joe Armstrong, Donald Trump had been freshly elected. Although the band didn’t want to talk about such a divisive subject, the singer did say that “listening to the national anthem that morning had made him feel very confused and depressed”.
Armstrong’s reaction comes as no surprise considering that this is the band who composed the 2004 Grammy winning album American Idiot. The album expressed the disillusionment of a young generation growing up in an era shaped by George Bush’s administration characterized by the war against Iraq and clearly served as a reflection of the band’s own disenchantment with the country’s foreign politics. As David Hopkins writes in an article dedicated to TV and Western civilization.
“In 2004, Facebook began, George Bush was reelected, reality TV became a dominant force in pop culture […] Green Day’s album American Idiot was released the same year and won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely.”
Although 2017 will probably be a divided year for America, Green Day’s new album Revolution Radio is still as vehement, clever and unapologetic as American Idiot. Could this album be any more well-timed? We think not.
