Green Day > Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.?

Oh, in my opinion, this conversation ends if anyone mentions U2.

 

I don't know from sacrilegious, but I'd be content with massively and totally wrong.

 

This thread makes me want to punch somebody.

Green Day? Seriously? My fucking God.

 

i have zero problem with anyone who wants to call "green day" a truly great rock 'n roll band. i don't give a spit how they compare to "pearl jam" or whoever. but this is a terrific group that has now stood the test of time. and they've followed up a monumental effort in "a.i." with a very respectable effort, not at all easy to do.

yes, i'm liking "21st century" just fine. how dare anyone try to make me feel bad for enjoying it!

 

But has Green Day influenced you?

 

Green Day's decent. I liked them back in the day. Saw them in about '96 or so, and it was one of the best shows I saw that year.

I liked American Idiot OK, although I'm a little dubious about swallowing political commentary from a band whose previous No. 1 hit was about whacking off (For the record, I also don't give a rat's ass what the Divinyls think about global warming).

Anyway, I find Green Day's latest offering to be sanctimonious and tiresome. I also could do without the guy-liner thing, too. They seem to be trying too hard to be "with it."

I wish they'd go back to singing about farts and semen.

 

So basically, you don't like that their music has matured?

 

certainly not. i'm too old to be influenced at my age. ;D ;D ;

but seriously, i dig how they's all growed up. unlike their fans who never want their rock idols to change.

 

That might be one way of looking at it. You make your bed you lie in it.

It's like the neighbor boy who spent all summer making armpit noises and lighting bags of poop on fire, then goes to college for a semester and comes back and tries to tell you about the world.

You want to smack that kid in the head and tell them to shut the fuck up, even if they happen to be right.

In the same vein, I'd rather Green Day leave the serious music to serious musicians. The stuff they're doing now seems so contrived.

 

I agree with the second part of this statement. Unlike others on this thread, I'm glad Green Day didn't just crank out slightly altered copies of Dookie for the rest of their career. And it's not just that they've evolved lyrically. The music on American Idiot (and what I've heard so far from "21st Century") is tighter and better than their 1990s stuff.

I see Pearl Jam as similar to Green Day in that respect. They could have just kept putting out clones of "Ten" throughout the 1990s, but instead they evolved, and there's some damn fine music on albums such as No Code and Yield.

Besides, by 1998 or 1999, Creed was more than happy to put out a clone of "Ten" for them!

 

The antipathy towards Nirvana -- and grunge in general in some circles -- interests me.

As we know, nostalgia tends to go in 20-year cycles, and usually, the antipathy towards a band or a form of music builds to a point where there has to be a counter-reaction to the dislike aimed towards it.

Nirvana isn't to that tipping point, it's still "cool" to dis Nirvana, but as more people throw out stuff like "Nirvana was overrated" or "Kurt Cobain sucked as a guitar player" or "They're only big because the lead singer killed himself", the kettle builds more steam.

Its been 15 years since Nirvana peaked, though only about 10 or so since they began to fade as the "band of the 90s".

The counter-reaction is coming. Not only towards Nirvana, but grunge in general. It's happened with damn near every other band and form of music, it will happen here too.

As for Green Day being better than either Nirvana or Pearl Jam, I can't get behind that. When they played SNL a few weeks ago, I saw them, and I told my wife after the first song ...

"I should really like that. That's right up my alley as far as the kind of music I love, but there's something about Green Day that's always come off as fake to me. That song, though it rocked, didn't click on some level. It's like they're the Stepford ... something ... Punkers? Rockers? I can't quite place what it is."

That's the way Green Day has always sat with me, whether critically reviled or praised.

 

I like Green Day, and about three years ago, I did begin to wonder about their place with respect to bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam in rock history. As consistent as they've been and as much as they've grown, I still can't put them about Pearl Jam or Nirvana, both of whom led a movement that lasted a decade. I mean, Nirvana displaced Michael Jackson's Dangerous atop the Billboard charts, and Michael Jackson never did reach the top of the charts like he used to from that moment on. That in itself is significant.

To me, Green Day belongs in the next group, along with bands like Weezer, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Great bands with long careers, but just a step below. I would probably consider a band like Nine Inch Nails before Green Day when debating who to put next to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. To hear "Head Like A Hole" and remember that "Pretty Hate Machine" actually came out in 1989, that absolutely floors me. While I know Depeche Mode and Ministry beat NIN to the keyboards, Trent Reznor seemed to start something new, just like Nirvana once did.