BILLIE JOE ANYTHING
Green Day have an infectious good time on Dos!
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Published: November 21, 2012 http://www.newsadvance.com/the_burg/music/pop_rocks
Published: November 21, 2012 http://www.newsadvance.com/the_burg/music/pop_rocks
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| With Dos! (Reprise), Green Day deliver the second of three new albums |
If
you'd asked just about anyone — even singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong,
bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool — whether a volatile, angst-ridden,
neo-punk trio like Green Day might turn out to be a viable vehicle for
anything, much less a five-time Grammy-winning powerhouse of a band with a
Broadway musical to their credit, back when they were just getting started over
two decades ago, the answer very likely would have been a simple
"no," followed by a chuckle or two. Even after they had their first
breakthrough with the multi-platinum major-label debut Dookie in 1994, Green Day still didn't seem to have the depth or
focus to endure for more than a couple more albums before burning out. Because,
if nothing else, that's just what punk-oriented bands tend to do. They run hot,
flame out, and, if they're lucky, leave a good-looking corpse behind.
But there's been nothing particularly
textbook about Green Day's trajectory. They had the good fortune of emerging
from Northern California's East Bay punk scene at just the right time to
capitalize on the slacker alienation of the alternative nation with fast and
furious songs that channeled the DIY spirit and oblique frustration of a
generation that had embraced the restive malaise of Nirvana. Sure, there were
plenty of self-appointed gatekeepers who questioned the "integrity"
of a platinum punk band who, for all their anarchic teen spirit, seemed all too
willing to play the game, which is really nothing more than old-school code for
"selling out" — something, as I was fond of pointing out, that the
Clash, the Sex Pistols, and even Nirvana had all been accused of at various
times. And then, Green Day somehow managed to survive a slow decline, as they
began to deviate from punk's loud, fast, and snotty rules, limping into the new
millennium with 2000's tepid Warning.
But, after a four-year hiatus from the
studio that found them deigning to co-headline a tour with Blink-182, Green Day
reemerged in 2004 with another fairly astounding, career-defining statement,
the timely punk rock opera American Idiot,
an album that once again captured the zeitgeist by tapping into the existential
anxiety of suburban teen life. Along with reviving Green Day as plausible
standard bearers for yet another generation of disaffected youth, American Idiot was cohesive enough to
suggest that Armstrong, the voice of the band, had matured as a songwriter and
might just be capable of anything. Indeed, American
Idiot: The Musical did go on to make its Broadway debut in 2010, and there
are now plans for a film version.
That Green Day didn't fall apart in the
wake of American Idiot, with
Armstrong surging ahead as a solo artist and the rest of the band moving on to
star in their own reality television series, is something of a minor miracle. I
mean, isn't that what rock stars are supposed to do these days? But,
apparently, Armstrong and his cohort, which now includes long time touring
guitarist Jason White, are fueled by something more than just a lust for
commercial success — something that might just be somewhere in the general
vicinity of "integrity," or at least a deep, genuine, shared love of
music.
If that sounds like an antiquated notion,
it might be worth remembering that the band were so fond of covering the Who's
classic youth anthem "My Generation" early on that they included
their version of it on their second album, 1992's Kerplunk. Because, as they now enter their forties, Armstrong,
Dirnt, and Tré Cool are still very much a unified force. In fact, they started
this year with a plan to release not just one but three new studio albums. And,
at this point, they're on track to do just that. Uno!, a blast of raw powered punk from Green Day's past that
alludes directly to the Clash and the Who, hit the streets running back on
September 21. And, the second salvo in the trilogy, Dos!, has just arrived, leaving plenty of time for the third to
drop in December.
If Uno! was a
no-holds-barred return to their raucous punk-pop roots, then Dos! is more of an anything-goes proposition.
Armstrong appears to have rid his system of the nihilistic gravitas that
elevated American Idiot and began to
feel a bit heavy handed on its semi-sequel, 2009's neurotic 21st Century Breakdown. But, even at his
most playful, he’s got a churlish dark side that rears its roaring head and
brings a little edginess to what might otherwise be throwaway party tunes. And that’s
essentially what Dos! is — a
high-octane collection of garage-rocking tunes about girls and stuff, but
mostly girls.
The disc opens on a knowingly sappy note, with the short and
bittersweet “See You Tonight,” a countrified downer buoyed by little more than Armstrong’s
simply strummed unplugged electric guitar and some nice Everly Brothers-style
harmonies by Dirnt. It’s really just a brief, if well rendered, set-up for Tré
Cool’s pounding drums, which ignite the next track, a sinister love song that
might have been called “Fun Time” if Armstrong weren’t so fond of dropping
f-bombs. “I wanna choke you ‘til you’re blue in the face/Got dirty thoughts and
a dirty mind/Take a look into my eyes/I wanna hold you ‘til you’re paralyzed,”
Armstrong sneers with menacing glee to the object of his disaffection, as the
rest of the band settle into an amped-up r&b groove and head for a Chuck
Berry-by-way-of-Angus Young guitar solo.
That’s more or less the basic blueprint for Dos!, which hangs Armstrong’s dirty
thoughts and mixed emotions on well-honed hooks and finds its way to more than
a few arena-ready melodies that are as artfully crafted as they are rough
around the edges. There are variations on that theme: “Wild One” slows things
down a bit for some tortured goth-grrrl romancing; “Stray Heart” takes its
cues, rhythmic and melodic, from the Motown playbook, as Armstrong offers an
apology of sorts for bad behavior; and, with its skewed guitars and Beatlesque
structure, “Wow! That’s Loud” trips into a little Revolver-style psychedelia.
Armstrong finds his strongest footing on “Lazy Bones,” a
clever, over-caffeinated ode to boredom and confusion that would have sounded
right at home on Dookie. “I don’t
want your sympathy,” Armstrong howls against a stack of growling guitars, “I
don’t want your honesty/II just want some piece of mind.” And, on the briskly
searing “Ashley,” Armstrong gets the balance of tenderness and disgust just
right as he confronts an ex who’s become a mess and tells her, “I can taste the
cigarettes and liquor on your breath/We used to call it speed, but now it’s
called crystal meth. . .”
There are a couple of outliers on Dos!, including the creepy slow-roller “Nightlife,” a reggae-tinged
rocker that features some guest rapping by Lady Cobra from California’s Mystic
Nights of the Cobra. It’s an awkward fit on an album full of rockers, but, even
if it proves that hip-hop isn’t Green Day’s thing, it still sorta works. And
then there’s “Amy,” an earnestly wistful, somewhat jazzy remembrance of Amy
Winehouse that reveals a more sophisticated side of Armstrong and proves that,
at this point in his career, he’s pretty much capable of doing just about
anything and maybe even pulling it off.
