Green Day - Dos!

To the sounds of screams of 'sell out', every ones current band that they love to hate - unless you are fourteen - Green Day are back with the second of their three albums that will be getting released.

Imaginatively (sic) entitled Dos! it's been punted forth early due to the cancellation of tour dates necessitated by the rehab visit of front man Billie Joe Armstrong.

Once again here will be those who will give it scant attention, but that's there loss.

While there's nothing ground breaking on show, and nothing that will rival Dookie, I'm of the opinion that along with Uno! it's doing a great deal to wash the taste of 21^st Century Breakdown out of our mouths and draw a line under the American Idiot period.

It's a nicely paced album. Well produced, well written and performed to.

None of that will of course matter though.

It's increasingly looking as if the dice has been tossed and Green Day are yesterdays winners.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for the band.

It's entirely possible that their fan base is large enough now to weather the storm of declining global popularity.

Regardless of record sales - which will still be healthy - it now seems that people have went beyond talking about the band as a trio who make music, and are more apt to discuss musical stage shows and television appearances rather than anything else.

Bit of a shame really as Dos! Is pretty darn good all things considered.

Green Day - Uno

I seem to remember that Green Day were going to release a treble album in the style of Sandinista.

A scary thought for some, but equally something that could have been described as a great deal of bang for your buck if you were a fan.

Now it's three separate albums staggered out over a longer period of time, and I suspect each will have their deluxe limited editions versions to purchase as well.

So not so much bang for your buck and more a pocket dipping frenzy by the record label.

Bit sickening, but no real surprise.

But how does 'Uno' shape up as a stand alone album?

Well three songs into it and I was thinking it was better than 21^st Century Breakdown.

In fact not just better, but light years away from the drabness of that release.

There's nothing new on show, but there's a degree of freshness back.

As it progresses song by song it becomes ever more apparent that Uno is the album that tries to bring the pre American Idiot fans back to the fold without alienating those who may think that Green Day began and ended with the global phenomenon that was American Idiot.

Whether that will work is debatable though.

Green Day seem to be suffering from a backlash, and there are people who will line up to claim they are crap without actually listening to the album.

This could have some impact on how the album is received, but if they could set aside any perceived issues they have with the band I would think that they would find some things on Uno to smile about.

There's the usual riffs, anthemic guitar solos and big massive sing along stadium pleasers rubbing shoulders with gems of punky power pop, and along with all that is the usual plagiaristic ear worms that annoy us oldies.

So pretty much all is in place as expected.

The difference being, as I mentioned, is that it does sound fresh and the fuck you fun aspect is back.

So yep. I'm liking it.

In fact I'm enjoying it so much that I may even go and see them again if they come around this neck of the woods, and I didn't think I'd be saying that.   

Green Day - Let yourself go.

Over the last couple of years I've found myself slowly drifting away from Green Day.
Is it just me, or do others think that the pop punk behemoths seemed to retread too much old ground the last couple of times that they toured the UK.
The main issue seemed to be that they were desperately trying to recapture the excitement of the American Idiot tour.
Basically there was far too little forward motion for me and I found myself far more impressed with the supports.
All the talk of a Sandinista styled treble album has left me somewhat cold to.
Especially after the gap filling live album.
Now here we are on the build up to the release and I've got to say I'm loving the footage that just been released to go with the track 'Let yourself go'.
Maybe there's life in the old dog yet.
Still unforgivable that Mr Armstrong is going to be a judge on the US version of 'The Voice' though.