SOUND BITES

What many casual observers don't know (or may not have noticed) about Green Day is their ability to shapeshift. It's easy to forget that, after breaking through with Dookie , they made a point of experimenting with their sound; by incorporating many different elements and influences into their maturing songwriting, they managed to explore a wide range of sonic possibilities while simultaneously maintaining the essence of what made them, well, Green Day. Of course, they accomplished all of this even before turning it all on its head with American Idiot , a record that went against the grain of what was expected of them and earned them a sizable second wind of popularity in the process. For fans of a certain age, it's somewhat overwhelming to realize that it's been twenty years since their boldly mature sixth album Warning threatened to delegate Green Day to the realm of forgotten '90s rock stars, and yet here we are. In this millennium, Green Day has gone from n...

"We all die in threes", Billie Joe Armstrong exclaims in the lead off track of his band's 12th album. While he may be referring to celebrities, he might as well be talking about his career. The messy, overstuffed trilogy of albums Green Day released in 2012 was hampered by Armstrong's entry into rehab and a lukewarm-at-best reception of the albums by fans. It was such a substantial fall that it could have ended Green Day then and there; and yet, here we are four years later, with the newly minted hall-of-famers back to the grind again and asking forgiveness from a fan base left cold by ¡Uno!/¡Dos!/¡Tre! , a project that even Armstrong admits was kind of a mistake. What we get from Revolution Radio isn't really a return to form, though it is a return to basics; boasting 11 rarely interconnected songs (packaged with a twelfth from the soundtrack to Armstrong's acting debut that is tacked onto the end and seemingly not meant to be taken as part of the album ...

(DISCLAIMER: The intent of this article is not to belittle the art of the double album, nor is the point to diminish the worth of the albums featured below. My goal is not to "fix" these albums, and I support the artists' decisions when it comes to how they present their art. Just so we're clear.) The double album: a career move meant to distinguish a batch of songs as something special. An artistic vision that simply can't be confined by standard definitions or time constraints. Many of our greatest musical landmarks run outside of the accepted parameters of what an album should be. Sometimes it's a grand statement, a series of musical moments strung together into something magical and cinematic. Other times, it's a way to express disparate emotions, a way to segregate when an artist is going for two distinct approaches at the same time. Sometimes it's simply a case of a creative outburst that grew too fast and too wild. Far be it for me t...

"I declare I don't care no more." There's the battle cry for Green Day's sophomoric sophomore album Dookie , a snotty and snarling bunch of quick ditties that duped a generation. Pop in punk's clothing, Dookie 's tunes are so masterfully executed that Green Day is allowed to push the tempo as high as they want while maintaining all of its melodic punch. A lot of us have forgotten (or were beaten into submission by their three-album opus in 2012), but there was a time when the approach was fresh and exciting; in a way, Dookie opened up the door for every pop/punk band you love or hate today. Of course, they'd move on to explore new sonic territory and tackle bigger issues as they began to fill stadiums, but there's something truly refreshing about going back to Dookie , when they had no world domination plans or interest in going outside of their musical comfort zone. This is part pure nostalgia and part pure adoration; no matter your opinion on ...

GREEN DAY Let Yourself Go From: ¡Uno! Released: September 25 Who knew 2012 would be such a tumultous year for Green Day? What started as a relatively harmless gimmick (release three distinctly different albums) turned into a Grade A shit show. A promotional gauntlet leading up to the release of the first album in the trilogy culminated in scores of fans pleading overexposure and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong admitting overdrinking (his entry into rehab stemmed from a gloriously unhinged rant at a web-broadcasted concert event). And yet, under all the layers of attention, the albums are best taken at face value. The problem is, taken at face value what should have been accepted as a bold and ambitious event was shrugged off as more than a little underwhelming. Perhaps it's the scattershot consistency of the tracks; for every song that earns a place alongside some of the band's best work, there's a song that's woefully similar to a song they've already do...

This post was going to start with a stream of Green Day's new album, but: a) The NME exclusive stream is limited to the Brits. b) You have to "like" their Facebook page to gain access elsewhere. c) Doing so in Canada opens up a link to Rdio. d) Rdio is a subscription based service that gives limited free trial time and asks for credit information. e) We've already heard 1/3 of it, and the other 2/3 isn't worth all that effort. So, that still leaves us with some good content, all of which is readily available.

Well, that was nice, wasn't it? Late July to early August usually signify the "dog days" of summer, and the music industry suffers from them with the rest of us. Now, though, it's time to start hyping up the fall release schedule, which is filling up fast. Buckle in, kids; business, as they say, is about to pick up.

When Red Hot Chili Peppers released their most ambitious project in 2006 (the 28-track double album Stadium Arcadium ), I thought it was pretty good, but that it's scope outreached its intrigue.  Without experimentation and deviation from their comfort zones, it was hard to take on those 28 tracks without boredom sinking in.  And it's a shame, because if you cut the weaker half of songs away you've got a hell of an album; instead, the addition of so much padding greatly lessened the album's impact. Now Green Day, partakers in ambitious projects themselves (what with American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown being modern day rock operas, the latter featuring a wide variety of instrumentation stylistic twists), are taking on their most ambitious project, and the first audio evidence is... underwhelming.

It's one of the worst kept secrets in rock history, this band is. But, if you really and truly don't know, Foxboro Hot Tubs are Green Day. Can we just get that out of the way and move on to the music, people? Stop Drop and Roll!!! comes as an expanded version of the 6-track EP given away on the net last December. These tracks serve as "Side A" of this album, except here the obscure sound bites are absent (they were rather annoying before every track, but I kind of miss the count in followed by "You're doing it fucking wrong!" at the beginning of Highway 1 ). Now, another of rock's worst kept secrets has, for quite some time, been Green Day's love of sixties rock music. One of their first recordings was a cover of The Who's My Generation . They later gave a faithful rendition of the Kinks' Tired of Waiting for You . It shouldn't come as a shock, then, that these two bands are paid highest respects on this, a sixties inspired e...