Green Day | InsomniacEmpty Bottle Evenings

Apr302015April 30, 2015April 30, 2015No Commentby Bake

Green Day | Insomniac

Posted in Music

The fact that Green Day was recently inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame might tell you something. That something is probably that they are pretty old. I don’t think it tells us that they were good or popular. I mean Ringo just got in as a solo act and who the hell has listened to his solo stuff? And there are much worse acts represented in Cleveland like fucking ABBA. (Shudder)But all same, with Green Day sidelined recently due to rehab and whatnot the biggest news coming from the band was this year’s HOF induction. This follows last year’s 20^th Anniversary of their massive breakthrough album, Dookie. Led by singles “Welcome to Paradise”, “Longview”, “Basket Case”, “She” and “When I Come Around” this album has sold over 20 million copies during the last two decades. Even if they did nothing worthwhile after Dookie they might have earned enshrinement with an album that big and influential.

Everyone had this record growing up. For me it still holds sentimental value as this was the first CD I ever purchased. For the youngins reading this, CDs or Compact Discs, were things that people used to listen to music on back when people listened to whole albums instead of downloading single songs. If you weren’t over 60 or didn’t wear a corduroy jacket that smelt kinda funny, you probably listened to your music in this format instead of records during the 90s. Before Dookie started my CD collection my music consisted of Top 40 Radio and a cassette (look it up, you’re better at the internet than an old guy like me)collection that included things like Bon Jovi singles, Weird Al records, and home recordings of Metallica bought at flea markets for 25 cents. After Dookie won me over, it wasn’t long before albums like The Offspring’s Smash and Weezer’s The Blue Album started permanently displacing the pu pu platter of bargain bin pop cassettes, recorded from the radio mixtapes (man was that a bitch), and maybe a few straggling offerings from Raffi.

While I still love Dookie and won’t argue with its popularity or influence on future bands, I can’t say I listen to it often anymore. Not only did I wear out my Sony Boombox spinning it, but the visual imprint of Billie Joe, Mike (donning the orange jumper), and Tree playing “Basket Case” in that mental hospital is still burned into my brain. Back when MTV played videos Green Day was getting Taylor Swift-like overexposure. I’ll still get up for those songs when I hear them live, but when I’m dicking around with my ipod in my car there is no real desire to hear “Longview” for the millionth time. Even if it was the first time I heard the word masturbation and my life was changed forever.

Strangely, or perhaps deservedly, the Green Day album that I find myself listening to the most often is Dookie’s follow up, 1995’s Insomniac. While the former contained all sorts of big production radio friendly hits, Insomniac is just over a half hour of Green Day at its punk rock finest. Yes, this is still Green Day, so there is nothing too rough or abrasive on the record; it is still accessible enough to rock audiences that it’s bewildering it sold only 1/10 of the copies that its predecessor did. Maybe your 5 year old wasn’t going to sing along, but there is no reason your 15 year old wouldn’t devour it. It’s still catchy and never lets up: there are no breaks for acoustic ballads (“Time of Your Life”), pop rock tracks (“Redundant”, “Waiting”) or weird experiments whether good (“King for a Day”) or bad (“Nightlife”) that can be found on later albums. While it can be argued that many of the songs are similar, I would play the “cohesive album argument” card. Maybe you could learn all these chords in a few hours, but screw you, if it was that easy, why didn’t you record this album? Sometimes simplicity is a good thing.

Insomniac stomps ass because they could have easily made Dookie part two and instead stripped things down to this simple hard-rocking, pop-punk formula. No, you’re an oxymoron! Songs like “Brat” and “No Pride” set the tone lyrically and musically that says we don’t care how many albums we just sold, we still feel like telling you to go fuck yourself. And something about a 3-piece band let’s you feel like they haven’t just become the biggest band in the world and instead let’s you appreciate each instrument as it is without getting drowned out by walls of sound, string arrangements, or any other tricks in a producer’s bag. Don’t get me wrong sometimes I love it when they turn those tricks (huh), but on this album I love hearing Billie Joe play his 3 chords. I like hearing Tre sweat his balls off during “Jaded”. And most of all, Insomniac shows how awesome Mike Dirnt is picking away on the bass in his signature style on songs like “Stuck With Me”, “Stuart and the Avenue”, and especially the slow build up of the Dirst co-written “Panic Song.”

I love this album even though after 20 years I still have no idea what they are talking about. The album starts with “Armatage Shanks” which is a great song with a suspicious title. Is it about a British toilet company? A cyber-attack management tool? A type of prison weapon? Who the hell knows for sure, but my former angsty self (and my current depressed self) could relate to lyrics like “I must insist on being a pessimist/I’m a loner in a catastrophic mind/Elected the rejected/I perfected the science of the idiot”. Of course, at first and (most subsequent) listen(s) I couldn’t make out any of the intended words. Billie Joe may play pop-punk but his nasally and incomprehensible delivery evokes his late ‘70s/early ‘80s punk forefathers. Admittedly I’ve always struggled with deciphering lyrics from most bands, but I think Insomniac’s “86” was the coup de grace to my confidence in ever understanding the words to the songs that I loved. Was it “There’s no return from INXS”? Michael Hutchence would certainly agree but that didn’t seem right. How about “There’s no return from mating sex”? Now that may sound ridiculous to you but in the days before the internet and missing liner notes it wasn’t so bad. Plus, there is no return from mating sex: the product of that act is a baby which is a horribly devastating life-changing event. In hindsight, “There’s no return from 86” makes the most sense but hey, don’t judge me. Okay fine, go ahead and judge me. I probably deserve it this time.

I don’t know how Green Day chose some of their titles on this album; even the singles were odd to say the least. Personally I don’t want to experience anything that makes me use the phrases “Geek Stink Breathe” or “Brain Stew”. “Bab’s Uvula Who” is apparently based on an old SNL skit and has absolutely nothing to do with the song’s content. I definitely wasn’t watching golden age SNL re-runs at that point, hell I didn’t even know what a uvula was! For those still in the lurch, it is that hanging, wrecking ball thing in the back of your throat. And yes, I’ve named mine Miley. Weird titles or not, these songs are still awesome. “Bab’s Uvula Who” describes losing control and has the perfect tempo change at the end of the song that makes you do just that when listening to it. If you drive by me in the car while I’m listening to this, do yourself a favor and move very far away. “Brain Stew” used to hold a special place in my heart as it is one of the easiest songs to play on guitar and sometimes as a musically untalented loser, you just need a win. Nowadays, I hear it more as a badass intro to its rapid-fire counterpart “Jaded”. In less than 90 seconds Green Day provides a huge blast of energy as Billie Joe sings “Always move forward/Going straight will get you nowhere/There is no progress/Evolution killed it all/I’ve found my place in nowhere”. Nailed it.

Green Day did move forward after this album. Nimrod was great but musically all over the place, with a few songs just not hitting the mark at all. Warning took the Green Day in an even more removed sound from their past and was generally considered a low for the band before they took a break and came back hard into the mainstream with American Idiot. That album set the tone for Green Day in the decade to come where every album they recorded contains a little bit of everything from fast paced punk songs like “St. Jimmy” to sappy ballads like “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. While I don’t love every song on American Idiot, 21^st Century Breakdown or any disc from their latest trilogy, I still like the albums as a hole and respect the need for the band to try different styles. And to be fair I never loved every song from 39/Smooth or Kerplunk either. When you’ve been a band this long it’s hard for every song to be a masterpiece.

And that is why Insomniac for me is the pinnacle of this band. I usually pick my musical selection based on my mood, and having that consistency across 14 songs makes this a great front to back listen when I need something to wake me up or when I feel like kicking the shit out of the steering wheel. I think I love it more now than I did when it came out. But I still don’t want them to create another. Even if it sounded the same, it never really sounds the same. And I can’t say the emotions would be unchanged coming from 40-something-year-old fathers even if they can still play fast from time to time like their 20-year old selves. While Insomniac wasn’t my first, raw dogging this album whenever I want to let out some steam still feels fantastic.