Second Official Greenday Thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jakebert

I fail to see what's wrong to release that many albums. If it were band you liked, you'd be incredibly happy to get that much material in such a short span of time. If the Offspring did it, you guys would be pumped. And don't even come back with "YEAH BUT THEY WOULDN'T CAUSE IT'S STUPID" because you don't know that they wouldn't or that they think it's dumb. (Also before you accuse me of the same thing, I'm not saying they don't think it's dumb. I'm using a hypothetical).

Bands like Husker Du, the Mountain Goats, the Replacements, Black Flag, the Beatles, and tons more were known for releasing multiple albums a year. In early rock 'n roll, bands usually would release an album and an EP of new material each calendar year, and sometimes would release two albums. Most early punk bands released a massive amount of material in a short period of time. This isn't some major unprecedented thing. The advertising for it is different, but at the same time, advertising for a new album is usually directed by the label, not the band.

It's weird because I'm defending a song I more or less find mediocre (if promising in terms of style) from a band I don't really care about anymore. But at the same time, most of the criticism towards them in this thread is obnoxiously knee-jerk and based on incredibly flimsy arguments from people who are picking apart anything that they can to support pre-conceived opinions of the band. I mean fuck, I'm one of the most close-minded and hyperbolic people on the board when it comes to music opinions but even I don't get some of the stuff in the thread. It's just that so few of the criticisms are about quality (and the few that exist, I haven't argued with-please notice that) but are instead based on these weird superficial assumptions about how the band works.

---

This I agree with entirely. I thought their descriptions of each album were ridiculous, but if you're a musician who writes tons of music, sometimes you just wanna release a lot of it. What else do the naysayers suggest? Don't write so much music? Keep the majority to themselves? And three albums in a year is a way better idea than a double disc. That way, people can choose if they just want one, two, or all three, rather than being forced to buy the whole package for a higher price. The Barenaked Ladies, System of a Down, and now Serj Tankian are three modern examples who've done (or in Serj's case, are doing) this. I think it's a cool idea if you've written that much material.

And the Offspring would never do this because they don't write enough material at least not enough material that they're proud of and think is worth releasing. Ever noticed how the last two Green Day albums have been over an hour long, while Splinter was barely over a half hour, and RFRG and DGB were less than 45 min? Green Day writes a lot more material in general - more than a lot of bands do. So it makes sense for them to want to release more.

I agree with Jakebert once again. There are bands who manage to write much great material over short periods of time. I am not sure Green Day is one of those bands though. It was four years between Warning and AI, then five years between AI and 21CB (although they put in a The Network album between Warning and AI and an FBHT album between AI and 21CB). Now they want to put out three albums within a period of 6 months. I think AI was a great album, no fillers. The same can't be said about 21CB which was way too long and had so many fillers. So I have mixed feelings about these three albums.

I'm not saying they should keep it all to themselves. Write a bunch of songs so you have a good selection, choose the best for the album and leave the rest for later, perhaps re-work them a bit if needed and so on. It would be a wiser thing to do. To me these 3 albums sound like they are desperately trying to up everything they did so far in the level of epicness for the sake of making something epic.


Maiden used to release an album every year when they started, but those albums weren't meant to be connected by a single concept, they are meant to be viewed as separate albums. The fact that they got released so quickly seems to point at the creativeness of the band, so kudos to them for it, and also to others who managed to release their albums quickly. But it doesn't mean that just about every band should do this. For these bands it was a natural process, they probably didn't even mean to release another album 6 months after the first one, it just turned out that way. But if you set out to release 3 full length albums in the first place, then you'd really be careful about what you do. I'm sure there are bands who can pull it off, but I'm not sure if those bands are called Green Day...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rooster

And given how much filler the last Green Day album had I'm not sure if they can manage 3 great albums in such a short time. It could be done I guess, but Green Day's recent efforts make me skeptical if they are the right band to try it. And if the new single is any indicator they should really just stick with one album and get rid of all the filler songs. And it's all even more difficult to work if the 3 albums are supposed to be conceptually connected. I'm not saying it can't be done and if it would be done properly then kudos to them. But I'm worried that it'll end up being a disaster.

---

Yeah, that's my top issue. They wanna be enormous and amazing and deep and multi-talented... but they just keep failing at it, in my opinion. They tried to force the last two albums to be a rock opera, but failed. They attempted multi-movement songs, but they were just several short songs mashed together. They attempted an album with acts, but that album (even more so than AI) is a very loosely-knit narrative and mostly feels forced... they're just not good at this kinda stuff, in my opinion. But I don't think three albums is a terrible thing, and maybe they'll pull it off. I do hope this first album will be Warning-ish, because that's my favorite GD album.

See Llamas, now you're exactly getting where I'm coming from :)

I couldn't get into American Idiot. I didn't give a damn about its concept, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I tried to get into 21st century breakdown, and while I really like some songs (just as I liked some songs from AI) there's just too much filler, the album is far too long. And now the news about 3 albums... You can probably see why I'm being so skeptical, or a "nay-sayer" ;)

You made another good point, you can just choose the album you like most of the three... Or they could all end up being below average, with 3 or 4 songs you really like on each of them, in which case you'd have a hard time deciding which one to buy, if any.

I would like to see them succeed in making all three albums good, but I won't be surprised if they fail.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rooster

I couldn't get into American Idiot. I didn't give a damn about its concept, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I tried to get into 21st century breakdown, and while I really like some songs (just as I liked some songs from AI) there's just too much filler, the album is far too long. And now the news about 3 albums... You can probably see why I'm being so skeptical, or a "nay-sayer" ;)

---

I really liked AI when it came out, but it definitely hasn't aged well. I haven't listened the album through in years. 21st Century I just straight-up don't like. I tried to listen to the whole thing again yesterday, and I got seriously bored. Viva la Gloria is my favorite song on it, and there are a couple other good ones like East Jesus Nowhere, but mostly it's just boring.

Quote:

---

I would like to see them succeed in making all three albums good, but I won't be surprised if they fail.

---

Right, same. In fact, I think that if they stopped trying so hard and just wrote more naturally like they used to, they could totally put out three great albums in a year.

Well, I listened to the song and I thought it sounded alot like warning...too much and it got me so exited that when the drums came in, I was just bored to death. I couldn't finish the song. Hopefully the rest of the album won't be like that



Regarding AI or 21CB, the story telling was great on AI and wasn't forced. However, some songs kinda suck on it. 21CB just sucked balls. Too much filler. The only one I really liked was Peacemaker Mass Hysteria/American Eulogy and that song about the radio and TV being static (Damn I can't even remember the name).21CB felt extremely forced like they were trying to recreate AI in massive "epic" proportions.

Overall, that song was a terrible single choice and I hope the rest of the albums won't suck

There's nothing inherently wrong with band's putting out large quantities of albums in a short amount of time - ie Frank Turner has 8 releases in the last five years and that's awesome since he's essentially in his songwriting prime and yes, Green Day can turn out some pretty rad music in a short period (the Network's album was apparently written in two days and it's fantastic): but over the last little while (and many of the live videos i've heard from uno/dos/tre have helped to reinforce this notion) is that Billie Joe comes across as being either uninspired with his writing or the songs just feel forced and awkward. The band i think needs to be reined in a bit by a producer who'll take a firmer line with them and "push back" a bit (for lack of a better phrase).

I really, really hope i'm wrong, but there will most likely be about a single album's worth of decent material on all three records combined: with an overabundance of filler.

The Darkness are epic without being pretentious and I would be very cautiously optimistic of my favorite band said they'd be releasing three albums in a year. I read almost none of what you guys said, but that's what I have to say.

RE: Oh Love

Protip for Green Day- if you're going to make a song 5 minutes long, it should probably, ya know... go somewhere. Pretty goddamn boring song.