Green Day - Insomniac

As I try to peer into my increasingly-foggy youth, I realize that my very first introduction to punk music of any sort was via early Green Day. I was maybe ten years old, standing in the room of my friend’s older brother as he put on “Nice Guys Finish Last.” Just standing, just listening, just loving it. A few days later, I managed to borrow Nimrod and Dookie to burn my own copies, discs which have not worked for almost a decade now due to overplay. 

I knew I liked Green Day then, and I liked them A LOT. So years later, when I was finally old enough to purchase my own CDs and found myself browsing the “G” section at Walmart (undoubtedly on a fruitless search for more Goldfinger), I found the “Green Day” tag and sifted through the cases, pulling out an album of theirs that I hadn’t yet heard, one that would change entirely the way I thought about music: Insomniac. 

As their third full-length and second major-label release, no one would have been surprised to see Green Day repeat the successful, accessible sound of their previous record, but that is exactly what the band avoids on Insomniac. Tré Cool lays into every single drum beat with fervor and fury, driving the tunes at tempos that mainstream radio had never even approached before. Billie Joe Armstrong thrashes his guitar strings, his tone soaked in distortion. He completely ignores even the concept of a guitar lead, favoring simple and biting power chords—and so Mike Dirnt’s rumbling bass fills that void, running through bright yet brooding basslines in “Stuart & the Ave” and “Stuck with Me."

While there is no lack of the pop sensibility that endeared them to the world, Green Day focuses the sound of Insomniac through the infuriated energy of their punk rock roots. And yet, Insomniac remains the band’s darkest release, and shows them testing the limits of the genre in which they began. “Geek Stink Breath” and “Brain Stew” feature slow, chugging progressions drenched in distortion and low frequencies, adding a morbid depth to their historically pop sound. “Panic Song” takes off with an extended jam intro, Dirnt frantically strumming a single screaming note while Armstrong and Cool crash against each other for two full minutes before launching into the song proper. Even the cover art features a layer of the strange and sinister, an adaptation of a Winston Smith collage entitled “God Told Me to Skin You Alive.” 

Insomniac chronicles a step in Green Day’s evolution, the meat of which is contained in Billie Joe Armstrong’s lyrics. Billie Joe is no longer singing about getting stoned, masturbating, or dreaming of distant girls; “Geek Stink Breath” tackles the destructive results of his methamphetamine use, while “Brain Stew” furthers the horrid after-effects of one of those benders. Many songs feature a bleak self-reflection: Billie Joe labels himself as “my own worst friend / my own closest enemy” in the opener “Armatage Shanks,” while further ragging on himself in “Bab’s Uvula Who?” with the line: “I’ve got a knack for fucking everything up.” 

Green Day’s Insomniac was written during a confusing and violent life upheaval for the band, a paradigm shift from which their abrasive instrumentation and darker lyrics are bred. Their previous release Dookie, being both their major-label debut and a monster hit, had propelled the trio into stardom overnight, a veritable accident. And yet the fact that they had attained it, even through dumb luck, led to their expulsion from the DIY punk scene at 924 Gilman Street, which had been their home and family since their high school days. Suddenly, Green Day stood in the spotlight of the world, completely abandoned and derided by their once-musical peers.

This sudden disconnection from the reality of their lives is the main theme that they explore through Insomniac. Despite having changed literally nothing but their distributor, the band fell ass-backwards into fame and new fans, and so lost the support and credibility of their old fans. And rather than fawn to either side, Green Day wrote Insomniac, a resounding “fuck you” to literally everybody. The sound is abrasive, raw, borderline violent—exactly the antithesis of radio. And yet their lyrics tell all the old, stuck-up punks from Gilman to piss off as well: “86” mocks the “holier-than-thou” attitude of their former friends, while “No Pride” calls out the hypocrisy of the punk scene with the lines “You better digest your values / cause’ they turn to shit” and “No culture’s worth a stream of piss / Or a bullet in my face.” 

Insomniac is a record about frustration and fury, about being stuck in a situation never asked for, and no song captures the complete insanity of that situation better than the album’s punk banger, “Jaded.” Clocking in at a minute and a half, “Jaded” was tacked onto the third single, “Brain Stew,” because of the crossfade between the tracks, and thus received far more promotion than it ever would otherwise. Amid a breakneck pace set by Tré Cool’s thumping kick drum, Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt give their strings the beating of a lifetime as they thrash and scrape. The instrumentation feels like a building about to collapse, yet the band holds it together long enough for Billie Joe to deliver his ranting, raucous lyrics. 

Immediately, the loss of control is made apparent: “Somebody keep my balance / I think I’m falling off” before commenting on the meaninglessness of at even attempting to control the situation in the chorus: “Always move forward / Going ‘straight’ will get you nowhere.” “Jaded” is Green Day’s swift kick to the face of fan and foe alike, a deriding commentary towards the bizarre situation they’ve ended up in, as well as their complete lack of interest in taking a side. 

Whatever your view of Green Day, if you give Insomniac a chance, you will find at least a true sincerity that most bands would sell their souls (and have already) to mimic, let alone embody. These three goofballs perform the most punk-rock of all actions by creating a record so unforgiving and unrelenting in its honesty that both the mainstream and the underground refused to accept it (just check out this angry letter written to Billie Joe, as well as his cheeky response). It is this record that showed me how to be true to oneself, wholly disregarding critics and sycophants and idols to create something that is simply and brutally the soul. Even if it is somewhat juvenile, bleak, or even nihilistic, Insomniac forces the listener to reevaluate the musician’s target of their music—the listener, or the creator—and that is a topic no other record even dares to approach. 

Tunes to Check Out:

1) Westbound Sign

2) Panic Song

3) Armatage Shanks

American Football - American Football (LP2)

About a year ago now, I absolutely fell in love with American Football’s debut LP, a rite of passage that had eluded me completely until it was reissued. If I had one lament at that time concerning American Football’s music, it was that there simply wasn’t enough of it to be had. Thus, you can imagine my ravenous delight when I got my grubby mitts on their brand new follow-up album, American Football (LP2), seventeen years after their break-up. The prospect of more sprawling songs in which to lose myself certainly had me excited, and yet the fact that this band could not only recapture the magic of their youthful songsmithing, but also improve upon it, has left me amazed and impressed beyond measure.

It may be a bold statement, but to me, LP2 seems a massive step forward from American Football’s debut. While Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, and Steve Lamos have retained the emotional honesty and gentle but penetrating technical musicianship for which the act is known, there is no lack of evolution on this record. The musical and lyrical themes explored on their first album, both now considered quintessentially “emo,” are still present on LP2, but expressed in a more mature fashion. The band members use the wisdom and experience gained in the last seventeen years as lenses, giving the act a new light that is both profound and extremely relevant.

This maturity is most obviously present in the lyrics of the record. Although most songs started as interlocking guitar parts before being fleshed out in the band’s Dropbox, each piece feels written with vocals in mind, a distinct departure from the more instrumental-driven first record. Kinsella actually spent the entire recording sessions writing and rewriting his vocal parts to fit the songs, and this intense amount of attention certainly provides a solid product. Kinsella allows himself to be extremely vulnerable in songs like “I Need a Drink (Or Two or Three)”, where he admits an unhealthy dependence on alcohol, or with obscured acknowledgement of a tendency towards infidelity in “Desire Gets in the Way” and “My Instincts are the Enemy.”

As Mike states, he “feels more comfortable being sincere…in [the songs of] American Football,” an honesty which rings heavily in the tunes on LP2. He takes the tropes of introspection and sincerity for which his younger music was known and adapts them to fit his life as an adult. His statement of “We’ve been here before / But I don’t remember a lock on the door / Is it keeping me out or you in?” in “Where Are We Now?” brings a temporal aspect into the music, speaking of distance growing between two individuals over a long stretch of time. The lines “Wild nights when we were younger / We thought we’d live forever,” in “Everyone is Dressed Up” conjure a longing for the feelings of youth, yet in “I’ve Been Lost for So Long,” the album’s first single, Kinsella presents a very aware, if not humorous, version of those same feelings in the statement, “Doctor, it hurts when I exist / This isn’t the pain I’m usually in.”

But as LP2 exhibits, American Football’s music has grown in the interim, so much so that it is now able to look beyond the emo introspection of its youth. Kinsella’s writing has become more aware of the world around him and concerned for those who people it. “Give Me the Gun” is a track about “checking in on a distressed loved one,” while “Home is Where the Haunt Is” examines the effects of grief and loneliness. It is in this latter tune that Kinsella’s writing really shines, as he first acknowledges the heaviness of the situation: “the past still present tense / you need more time to mourn,” before finding some understanding and acceptance: “The ghost in the corner of the room / knows how you’re feeling / ‘cause your dead to him too.” LP2 shows this band’s growth from self-centered youths into responsible and responsive adults, connecting outward concern with the inward contemplation for which they are known.

The lyrical composition is hardly the one facet of American Football to have matured. Just as the scope of Kinsella’s writing has enlarged, so to has the band’s instrumentation. Both Kinsella and Holmes have retained the “sparkly” guitar sound which is their signature, and put it to work hard, but it is no longer their limit, as acoustic guitars, vibraphones, and bells all work their way to prominent spots in the songs. Similarly, the odd time signatures and interlocking melodies that define American Football’s sound are prevalent, but dialed back just enough to let Kinsella’s powerful, heart-wrenching vocals to take the center. And last but not least, their inclusion of Nate Kinsella as a full-time bassist has made all the difference, his unobtrusive yet poignant lines filling the low end that was so notoriously missing from American Football’s sound.

Perhaps the best example of the band’s sonic evolution is the second release from LP2, “Give Me the Gun.” The overall structure appears relatively simple, alternating just between A and B sections, but American Football brings its technical skills to the forefront with their time signature choices, writing the A section in a convoluted but harmonious 6/4 (one measure of 11 and one of 13), while the B section alternates between 8 and 7.  Kinsella’s vocals are sparse, his lyrics even sparser, allowing the intertwining guitars to meld together in between spotlights on Steve Lamos’ soft yet syncopated drum lines. “Give Me the Gun” is a perfect example of how this band brings its big guns to bear—subtly, letting the mood and music carry the true weight and adding flourish only when appropriate.

 

Whether or not you choose to place it against the band’s small but significant legacy, LP2 is an American Football record that easily stands on its own as awesome and evocative. The picturesque instrumentation, laden with both thought and feeling, couple perfectly with Mike Kinsella’s painfully truthful lyrics to design nine unique composites of the band members’ lives. LP2’s delicate beauty is both resonant and easy to absorb, and if it gives any hint as where these men are headed, I know I will continue following them with eager eyes and ears.

Tunes to Check Out:

1) Home is Where the Haunt Is

2) I Need a Drink (Or Two or Three)

3) Born to Lose