Occasionally–and by that I mean maybe once or twice a year–I ask myself why I hate Green Day. They come up with nice melodies, I admire Billie Joe Armstrong’s public disdain for Donald Trump, and there are definitely worse bands I can spend my time despising. But despise them I do, and I’m not alone. I recently hosted a competition to see who could come up with the most entertaining reason for hating Green Day, and here are a few of the responses I received.
My friend Patrick stopped short of hate, but did say, “When I hear Green Day’s name my soul crumbles into a deflated heap on the floor and I stare pleadingly at the ceiling to not exist.” My friend Kathleen went on a rampage about how ”every single person who attended high school or college since 1997 has been subjected to “Good Riddance/Time of Your Life” and it’s a miracle we don’t all have PTSD” before adding, “Green Day and their shit-filled, faux-punk (ha!) songs need to get the hell off my lawn!”
But first place goes to my good pal Steve, who wrote, “They remind me of the snot-nosed Bratz that used to live on my street. One day I was changing the starter on my car. My feet were sticking out from under it and about five of them showed up. They started singing that Queen song “We Will Rock You” and before they got to the third “rock you” I felt a warm splashing on my legs. The snot-nosed kids were pissing on me. That’s what Green Day remind me of.”
But let’s get down to why I hate Green Day. In part it’s because they’re directly responsible for the likes of Blink 182, Sum 41, and No Doubt, which in and of itself means we’d all be better off had they never happened. More importantly, they were the sugar-coated spearhead of tweener rebellion, and as such responsible for spawning a a generation of kiddie punks playing dress up (“Look, I found dad’s purple Mohawk in the closet!”) in hopes of scaring both parents and teachers who’ve–ho hum–seen it all before. Their greatest fear isn’t punk–it’s that their kids will take to wearing pink Izod Lacoste polo shirts with baby blue sweaters tied around their shoulders. If you really want to scare the bejesus out of the ‘rents, kids, Izod is the way to go.
The undeniable fact is Green Day have leached all of the danger out of punk, and are packaging it to impressionable kids many of whom don’t know they’re participating in a historical reenactment along the lines of those held at Civil War battlefields. Everybody has a real good time and nobody gets hurt, because the guns are props and the real battle ended a long, long time ago. The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau pointed to 1994’s Dookie as proof that punk lives. But if it does, it lives in a gated community in the suburbs, votes Republican, and washes its Volvo twice a week.
Then there’s the problem of Billie Joe Armstrong himself. He’s a whiner. He acknowledges as much on “Basket Case” (“Do you have the time to listen to me whine?”) and “Welcome to Paradise” (“Dear mother can you me whining?”). And when he’s not whining he’s either being snotty or oozing sincerity, and what’s worse he’s inspired a legion of imitators even more annoying than he is. His is the voice that launched a thousand shits.
I suspect you’re wondering why I’m taking any of this seriously; Green Day are an inoffensive lot, and hardly worth my wrath. But that’s precisely the point: punk isn’t supposed to be inoffensive. It kills me to think of kids listening to the Play-Doh punk of Green Day when they could be listening to the Sex Pistols, the Stooges, Black Flag and any number of other bands that chose to fight, piss, snarl and puke rather than mass produce cool decals for skateboards. The Stooges were menacing. Green Day are cute. Chalk one up for chipmunk punk.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D
