Green Day / YMMV - TV Tropes

Broken Base: Where do we start? Green Day is both one of the most loved and hated Pop Punk bands in the world.
- The band went from 1990s party punk superstars to reinventing themselves as the 2000s replacement for Rage Against the Machine (mainstream political punk rockers) with back-to-back concept albums, which split the base into people who appreciated the newfound ambition and those who liked the "old" Green Day better.
- Hoo boy, Father of All Motherfuckers inspired some really strong reactions. Depending on who you talk to, it's either a hell of a lot of fun crammed into a tidy 26 minutes, or it's hackneyed and a low point for the band. Notably, Anthony Fantano utterly despised it and gave it a rare 0 rating, which, in itself, divided his viewers.^note It seems Green Day may have realized this; during the Hella Mega Tour (which was partly meant to promote this album), the band didn't perform any songs from it.
- When you get right down to it, Green Day have been inspiring strong opinions for so long that it's hard to find an album in their catalog that doesn't invite divisiveness. Even 1996's Insomniac can count. There's some people filing it under It's the Same, Now It Sucks! yet there's a sizable amount of people who like it as much, if not better, than predecessor Dookie.
Common Knowledge: In the lead-up to Revolution Radio, there was a surprising number of people who thought they broke up or weren't making music anymore until told otherwise. Hell, their last record before that one came out only 4 years prior and it was the third that year, since they released an album trilogy and they never broke up in the interim. They just took an extended break after their 99 Revolutions Tour due to Billie Joe noticeably running on fumes by that time after coming out of rehab.
Contested Sequel:
- Anything in between Dookie and American Idiot, since the former was a really Tough Act to Follow. This is especially egregious, because what is considered their most widely-known song to the general public came from Nimrod, and their least successful album up to that point, Warning, was eventually Vindicated by History.
- The ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tre! trilogy also fits here, considering the albums adopt an extremely radio-friendly and pop-esque sound that would sound out of line if placed on Dookie or even Warning.
Discredited Meme: The online joke of telling Green Day to "wake up" at the end of September (thanks to the song "Wake Me Up When September Ends") became this over time. It got to the point where Green Day themselves had to tell fans to stop doing it, which most did after finding out the song's origins. It was about the death of Billie Joe's father, which occurred in September of 1982, and got its name from Billie Joe locking himself in his bedroom after the funeral and telling his mother to "wake [him] up when September ends".
Epic Riff:
- "When I Come Around" is their most popular guitar riff from the Dookie era.
- "Longview" (both the iconic bass riff and the opening rumbling drum riff)
- "American Idiot", helped by the singing quieting down the music, so the riff always blasts loud and epic.
- The entire first half of "Panic Song," an extended intro with a rapid-fire chug from Mike and intense guitar work from Billie.
- "Holiday" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", whether separate or together. The former is a Glam Rock behemoth, and the latter melancholy sing-song that's been compared favorably to "Wonderwall."
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Despite "Wake Me Up When September Ends" being about the death of Billie Joe's father, there are still many that believe that it's actually referencing 9/11. Considering the rest of the album had songs about someone growing up in the early-mid 2000s and had songs aimed at the George W. Bush administration, it's not hard to see why, especially with the title and lyrics containing the word 'September' and the somber tone.
Fandom Rivalry: With blink-182 throughout the early 2000's, often with debates ensuing on whether either band qualified as "punk" or "pop punk" (even when they toured together in 2002 on the Pop Disaster Tour). In recent years however, the two fanbases have a lot of overlap given that Blink and Green Day were popular around the same time period. Younger/newer people in particular are often fans of both bands.
First Installment Wins: People consider ¡Uno! to be the least worst of the trilogy due to some songs being slightly more enjoyable than the songs in the other two albums, with notable favorites being "Nuclear Family" and "Let Yourself Go".
Gateway Series: For a lot of people, Green Day tends to be the very first band that's introduced them to the Pop Punk genre.
Growing the Beard: The consensus answer here is Dookie, the album that made them superstars, the album where Billie's pop songwriting was honed down to a fine point, and the album that made them for Pop Punk what Nirvana was for Grunge. That said, it's not hard to find people who believe the album before, Kerplunk! from 1992, is where the band really became the well-oiled machine they are today. It helps that the latter album is where Tré Cool debuted.
Hilarious in Hindsight: 15 years after the "Dean Gray" remix of "Whatsername" mixed it with "Manic Monday" by The Bangles, Billie Joe covered it for his "No Fun Mondays" series of covers on the band's YouTube channel.
Ho Yay:
- Billie is bi and Tre ambiguously so, so there have been a few instances of this over the years.
- Billie has a tendency to kiss fans — regardless of their gender.
- Especially seeing as, during one concert, Billie sang "So go do what you like/I'm having sex with Mike." And a picture from a then-recent Canada show where Tré is on his knees in front of Billie Joe, who has a mic between his legs. Oh, and an old video of Tré and Billie randomly kissing (while shirtless) in the middle of a set.
- "I have a very sneaky suspicion that something very bizarre is about to happen..."
- In the jazzy outro to "Brain Stew" on Bullet in a Bible, Billie Joe describes Mike as "a man who looks really good naked" and describes Tre as "someone I like to shower naked with".
It's Popular, Now It Sucks!:
- Dookie led to screams of "sellout" that persist even today. To put this in perspective, when the band signed to Reprise and released Dookie, they were banned from 924 Gilman Street, a music club they'd regularly performed at beforehand, until they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, a good 21 years later. The banning was what their song "86" was about.
- Again with American Idiot. How dare they gain a new generation of fans?!
- And let's not get started on the re-emergence of "Good Riddance" into mainstream pop culture.
- It should be noted that the band is painfully aware of this phenomenon, and was alienated by the punk community they were once a hit in.
Misaimed Fandom: "Good Riddance" was originally sarcastic in tone, as Billie Joe wrote it to express bitterness at his then-girlfriend for breaking up with him before going abroad. However, it's exceptionally popular at weddings, Bat Mitzvahs, graduation ceremonies, and other events that involve slow dancing, where the lyrics are taken at face value and interpreted as a genuine fond farewell, and this has helped the song become one of the band's most famous. Though to be fair, the lyrics aren't that bitter — in fact, the only thing to hint at bitterness is the song's Non-Indicative Title and the single art featuring Billie Joe rolling his eyes.
- Regardless of the original meaning of the song, Green Day has ultimately embraced the "fond farewell" interpretation, now ending their concerts with a sweet performance of the song meant to sincerely tell the audience that they hoped it was "the time of [their] life."
Misattributed Song: Several, including "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger and numerous others.
Narm: The melodramatic, overwrought acting in the video for "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a frequent topic of derision, as shown with these videos. Not for nothing, those two actors (Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood) are soap opera stars.
Nausea Fuel: The "Geek Stink Breath" video features graphic closeup footage of a friend of the band getting a tooth removed. MTV would only play it late at night, and a less graphic edit was used internationally.
Never Live It Down: As part of the rollout of their 2020 album Father Of All Motherfuckers, the band's social media shared a photo of a billboard with the oddly-defensive tagline "No Features. No Swedish Songwriters. No Trap Beats. 100% Pure Uncut Rock." Even years later, Gen Z are still raking them over the coals for sounding like out-of-touch boomers, and it likely contributed to the album's, let's say, polarizing reception.
Nightmare Fuel: The ending of the "Kill the DJ" video, where people start smearing blood all over them and then keep dancing.
Older Than They Think: "Haushinka" was performed live in 1992, but didn't see a studio recording until it was featured on nimrod.. It was originally demoed for "Dookie" though not included. Supposedly, it first dates from the late 80s, although no recordings or performances were made then.
- Similarly, "When It's Time" was written in 1989, performed live in 1992, and was demoed for nimrod., yet didn't see a studio version until 2010.
- The chorus of "Black Eyeliner," another demo originally created for nimrod., was later polished and retooled into the song "Church on Sunday," which appears on their following album Warning in 2000. The melody from the former's verses also makes a much later reappearance in side project The Longshot 's "Kill Your Friends," released in 2018.
Pop Culture Holiday: For a while, a common fandom joke was to reference "Wake Me Up When September Ends" on October 1st. However, this died down a bit after more people found out that the song was about the death of Billie Joe Armstrong's father (not that this stopped a few Trolls).
- In recent years, Billie has come to accept and embrace this joke, even releasing a teaser trailer on October 1st, 2023, showing the singer waking up, hitting snooze on his alarm, seeing a date circled on his calendar, then dramatically pulling the covers back over himself and going back to sleep. The circled date, October 24th, 2023, would be the release date of then-new single "The American Dream is Killing Me." "Wake me up!" is penciled in on October 1st as well.
Portmanteau Couple Name: Trillie for the pairing of Tré and Billie.
Retraux: "Poprocks And Coke" from 2001 has such a simplistic, lighthearted sound that a lot of fans who heard International Superhits first assumed it was one of their early recordings. In actual fact, it was newly done for the compilation.
Seasonal Rot: It's agreed by most of the general public that they lost a certain magic at some point, though there's no real consensus on when. Did they start to run on fumes around the time of the trilogy? Did 21st Century Breakdown start to see diminishing returns? Or maybe you're more into their original pop-punk sound, and fell off when they got into the rock operas like American Idiot? Some would even go back as far as Dookie as their last great record.
Sequel Displacement:
- The only pre-Dookie song many people know is "Welcome to Paradise" (which is on that album, but was originally on its predecessor, Kerplunk).
- Ditto with American Idiot to Generation Z. The only pre-Idiot songs widely known to that generation tend to be "Basket Case" and "Good Riddance."
- Even longtime fans would be surprised to see that in their pre-major label days, their most popular song was far and above "Going to Pasalacqua", a song not physically released as a single. Live videos from the time can attest to this, with moshpits and crowd singalongs happening virtually every time it's played. Whilst it's still pulled out live on occasion (one such performance appears on Awesome as Fuck), it does not appear on either Greatest Hits compilation nor does it have a video. As a result, even though it was one of the songs that got the group signed, nowadays it's very much an obscure fan favorite.
Signature Song: By album...
- 39/Smooth: "Going to Pasalacqua".
- Kerplunk: "2000 Light Years Away".
- Dookie: "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around", with "Welcome to Paradise" and "Longview" not too far behind. "She" is also a reasonably popular hit.
- Insomniac: "Brain Stew" and "Jaded".
- Nimrod: "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)". "Nice Guys Finish Last" is also really popular, too.
- Warning: "Minority" or the Title Track.
- American Idiot: Though the album is really full of classics, the most popular ones are "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (arguably their absolute signature), the Title Track, "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and "Holiday". Another very notable song is "Jesus of Suburbia", an example of Epic Rocking clocking at around 9 minutes yet released as a single and very appreciated, especially by rock audiences.
- 21st Century Breakdown: "21 Guns". "Know Your Enemy" comes second, and the Title Track is also quite well-known.
- ¡Uno!: "Oh Love".
- ¡Dos!: "Stray Heart".
- ¡Tré!: "The Forgotten".
- Revolution Radio: "Bang Bang" and "Still Breathing", with the Title Track not far behind.
- Father of all Motherfuckers: the Title Track and "Oh Yeah!".
Song Association:
- "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" being on Seinfeld...and endless PowerPoint slideshows of pictures from camp, high school, clubs, sports, etc. that people who grew up in the late '90s and early 2000s probably also remember. "Overplayed" doesn't even begin to cover it.
- "Stop When the Red Lights Flash" in Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012).
- "All the Time" is now strongly associated with a MIDI rendition featured in the soundtrack of the infamously bad video game Mineirinho Ultra Adventures.
Squick: They originally planned to name their first major-label album Liquid Dookie, inspired by eating spoiled food whilst on tour and catching diarrhea. The execs shot down the idea due to how it could alienate people who would be otherwise interested in their music, and they settled for just Dookie instead.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The band has become fairly notorious for this since their Turn of the Millennium comeback.
- On 21st Century Breakdown, "21 Guns" and "Restless Heart Syndrome" sound oddly similar to Green Day's biggest 2000s song, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".
- The intro to "Kill the DJ" sounds an awful lot like the opening of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" (after the drums).
- The 2024 release of Saviors, while mostly very well-received, hit a minor snag when some people noticed that the glam-rock stomp of "One Eyed Bastard" had more than a passing resemblance to P!nk's "So What."
Sweet Dreams Fuel: For a punk band, they're produced a surprising number of lullaby-like songs:
- The "Dearly Beloved" section of "Jesus of Suburbia". The xylophone is killer.
- "Good Riddance", with its gentle violins and well-wishing lyrics.
- "Poprocks and Coke"'s simple but warm and reassuring lyricism paints the picture of a beautifully supportive friendship, accompanied by an easygoing and bubbly tempo.
- "Pollyana", with Billie's voice at its sweetest, enthusiastic guitars, and lyrics espousing a spirit of childlike wonder.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The main reaction to Warning and its Lighter and Softer sound.
Tough Act to Follow: Dookie became this, as Insomniac, Nimrod, and Warning didn't get anywhere close to its success. Eventually, they achieved something close with American Idiot... which in and of itself has become an example of this, as every other album after it has been divisive among fans.
Vindicated by History: Although Warning got bashed upon release by fans for being deliriously happy and light-sounding, in coming years people admitted that the album was truly great but was overlooked.
Win Back the Crowd: The two songs preceding the release of Revolution Radio, "Bang Bang" and the eponymous "Revolution Radio", have gotten acclaim from both fans and critics for Revisiting the Roots of American Idiot and Dookie (which the band intended to do).

YMMV / Green Day

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