Before They Became MTV Sellouts

I hate Green Day with every inch of my body now a days ever since the release of "American Idiot", but the old stuff from the 1990's isn't that band. This is one of their good albums, before they signed with Reprise records. "2000 Light Years Away" is a good song, along with the "Welcome To Paradise '92" and such.



Although this band is to blame for breeding the "poser punk" generation of boy bands like Good Charlotte and Simple Plan and such, this is a good record.

ok

so I decided to give this cd a second chance, and it is now one of my favorites. If you can get past the horrible production quality, the songs on here are awesome. some of the guitar work is excellent, I never even knew billiejoe was capable of that.

you know, these subject titles make me nervous

not quite as badly produced as 1039/smooth, kerplunk! is a step up for green day, where links between the music on this disc can easily be made to that on dookie. there is more variety here, and the clear example of this is in the emotional "no one knows", which is one of my favourites on the record. it displays a lovely side of green day that, at this stage, they seemed pensive about presenting. it's only in later albums that green day felt comfortable expanding out of a punk shell and into something far more glorious.



the raddest song on the disc is "2000 light years away", which is superb in rhythm and green day-ness, if i can put it in such a way. it's a complete embodiment of green day's sound and should have been included on the international superhits album. in another attempt to vary the album's style, "one for the razorbacks" is included, and ought to be recognised as an original sounding piece much unlike the rest of the record in a way i cannot pinpoint. to round off my top four (which includes "no one knows"), "christie road" is a wonderful song encompassing feelings of apathy and boredom.



a familiar song, "welcome to paradise", is in its original form on kerplunk!. it's somewhat punkier than the version found on dookie, but nonetheless rougher and less cohesive. personally, i prefer the version on dookie as the harmonies are slightly improved and the quality of production is much more flattering.



green day's sound is far more confident on this disc, and paves the way rather nicely for the even more infectious dookie, to be released the year after. creatively, they are more experimental on this album than the two albums which succeed it (dookie and insomniac) and the emergence of inspired musical flair doesn't appear again until nimrod, in which it is evident how much green day had supressed in order to make solid "punk" records.



i sound pretty sophisticated in these things don't i? dude.