Green Day - Dookie (1994)

After recording a couple of "true punk" releases in the early 90s, the band finally "sold out" and released "Dookie" - their breakthrough to the mainstream. This album established them as the de-facto face of contemporary punk/pop-punk music, but at the same time made their OG fans furious about their supposed sell-out and embrace of the mainstream. And while I understand their stance (after all the whole point of punk is to be a contrarian), I regard this album as my favoutite Green Day release. They might have gone un-punk-ish mainstream, but the typical themes are still there - there are songs about rebellion, teen issues and stuff. Hell, some songs even feature some slight LGBT themes here and there. The classic punk "soundfont" is there too. The angry 90s Green Day fans must've really struggled with hating this music...

As it is with Green Day, the musicianship of each member is uncharacteristicly admirable for this, "simple" kind of music. The basslines are prominent and immidiately interesting (they might actually be my favourite thing about this record!), the drumming technique is fantastic (e.g. the epic little breaks and fills in "Burnout"), and the vocal sound choices and melody writing is insanely catchy and cool. About the guitar, let's jusr say that it is there. Billy Joe primarly plays just some power chords, so not much is really going on in that department, but some song feature a nice melodic solo of sorts, so that's neat.

I already mentioned the thing that I like the most about the first track there, "Burnout" - it's the cool rhytm breaks accompanied with drum fills. Kinda similar thing also happens in the next song - "Having a Blast", but no fills there. Overall, the first two or three songs are so catchy and fun. They feature unexpectedly unusual and satisfying melodies by Billy that I always enjoyed. Apart from using creative vocal layering (lead vocal line over a one-note singing voice), he uses weird intervals that makes the music sound more "floaty" and interesting to ears. It's especially evident on the endings of some lines on the song "Chump".

"Longview" on the other hand is a display of Mike's astounding bass skills. I looooove the bass work on this one. It implements a perfect balance between rhytm and melody and at the same time complements all the other instruments. Drums are very cool there too! The song's outro is a rare moment of guitar playing something more vibrant and interesting that a set of power chords. All that is enough to make "Longview" a definite highlight of this album and this band overall. Apparently it was a first single off the LP and while it is an interesting choice given the existence of "Basket Case", I can 100% understand this decision.

The track that follows is "Welcome to Paradise", which rivals "Longview" in being my favourite song on "Dookie". It less of a display of bandmates' abilities and more a banger. It's ultimately just a very well written pop-punk song. The vocal and lyrical work here shows that the band is much more that some random underground punk group - their breakthrough is absolutely justified by their world-class songwriting.

"Pulling Teeth" slows things down for a moment and introduces another memorable series of rare moments of fun guitar melodies apart from another wall of power chord sound. Of course the sing-alongy verses and bridge are too a important highlight of this track. Also, I like the lyrics a lot.

Then there's the obvious one - "Basket Case". I always liked this song despite beging overplayed and generic-sounding. It's not that popular where I live anyway, so I didn't really have the time to grow to hate it. It also marks a point in the album for me, after which a lot of "filler" appears. The next couple of songs are somewhat more mundane and forgettable for me. Of course some of the licks and lines of them are catchy and neat, it's just that I prefer the first half of the album by a long shot. "She", "Sassafras" and "Coming Clean" are all good songs with typical, punkish lyrics and characteristicly (to this album) creative note juxtapositions. I like the lines about "wasting your time" and how "mom and dad will never understand". They may be on the nose but they're absolutely cute and fit the music well. The band members were young adults at the time so it makes sense that they would embrace such themes in their music.

Another popular hit from this album, was "When I Come Around". I like it and understand why it received so much radio play back in the day, but I kinda regard it as just another song off the tracklist. It wasn't/isn't really popular in my country and it features all the good and bad quirks of the LP, so it's just ultimately just a fine, poppy tune.

The two songs "Emenius Sleepus" and "In the End" are undoubtedly my least favourite track there, along with what "F.O.D." becomes in it's latter half. Maybe it's just that I grow more and more tired of power chords and overall punk aesthetic the further I go with the tracklist. "F.O.D" could've been miles better had they stuck to this acoustic sound of it's beginning.

Speaking of acoustic guitar, it's the 90s release so naturally we have a hidden track here, called "All by Myself". It's sung and played by Tre - a band's drummer, and it shows. The song feels very unlike the ones that came before. It's not that interesting musically and I hardly ever come back to it, but often times it gets stuck in my head for extended period of time. It's a nice curiosity and I always look forward to hearing it after the minute or so of silence at the end of CD.

"Dookie" was an album that made me don't look down upon punk music. I don't like proto-punk bands like The Clash or Sex Pistols at all and the band that made me change my mind on anything punk-adjacent was Silver Mt. Zion of all things, and they aren't even that punk. But hearing this album made me realise I was just missing the point of this type of music. While I was introduced to Green Day in my childhood by the excessive use of "American Idiot" hit songs in the earlier days of the internet, this album, 15 years later is where I got hooked on this band as a nice pop punk experience. I was introduced to it thanks to the wonderful "Discord & Rhyme" podcast and I'm very thankful for that to them. I bought it immidiately and I regularly put it on. It's an amazing and exceptionally musically interesting album that seems to be an ideal entry point to the landscape of pop punk!