I used to be a hater
I used to hate Green Day. I mean, actively hate them. It was all because of one song - “Basket Case”. It was 1994 and the song was all over the place; on the radio, on MuchMusic. I couldn’t get away from it. Maybe it was the video, or maybe it was the song’s opening lyric:
Do you have the time, to listen to me whine
To be honest I still hate that frickin’ line. While I did quietly enjoy “Longview”, with it’s great bassline, I just couldn’t listen to “Basket Case”.
It’s funny how things change; how our tastes and opinions shift, flex, and merge. Today I was at the gym and listening quietly to my iPod. The first album I chose was “Endless Wire”, the 2006 album from the Who. While it is an undeniably solid achievement, it wasn’t exactly workout friendly, so I shuffled through the iPod until I came across “American Idiot”. I knew immediately that would be the ticket. And I was right.
A punk band doing a rock opera? It worked, and rocked. In 2004 I became a Green Day fan. I loved the band’s ambition and drive; the band hated the America they were living in at the time and steadfastly took it on. I loved that “American Idiot” veered between two minute pop/punk songs and 9 minute mini-operas that were clearly inspired by the Who (shifting from the Who to Green Day this morning was a total coincidence). I loved that they wrote songs of substance that were actually embraced by various radio formats. I loved that Green Day suddenly became more to me than that band that wrote “Basket Case”.
On that note, use GREENDAY as your weekend bonus code. Have a good one!