GREEN DAY: REVIEW

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jueves, 20 de septiembre de 2012

News: Green Day "¡Uno!" Album Review — 5 out of 5 stars

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:48:39

Green Day "¡Uno!" Album Review — 5 out of 5 stars - By ARTISTdirect.com editor in chief Rick Florino…

So, leave it to Green Day to top even Dookie with their ninth studio album, ¡Uno!.

Now, American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown were classics in their own right, but Dookie changed the game for a whole generation and beyond. If you can't hum "When I Come Around" by heart, there's something wrong with you. Who could forget the video for "Basket Case" or the band's mud-covered Woodstock '94 deification? However, the first entry of their ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! trilogy ups the ante and reeks of revolution. It's the biggest, most bombastic, and brilliant Green Day album yet. Like your favorite records from AC/DC and The Beatles were simplicity is the key to genius, ¡Uno! remains timeless.

From the power chord unrequited lover's plea "Stay the Night" to the smoking stomp of opener "Nuclear Family", the band has perfected pop rock into a punk-y science. "I just want some action, so give me my turn," declares singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong at the start of the former. That action comes on the tasty bass bounce from Mike Dirnt, while Tre Cool's towering beats can fill any stadium worldwide. Let's not forget the surf-style lead—pure California bliss.

"Carpe Diem" is a groove-driven anthem of seizing the moment—might be their "Motto" a la Drake and Weezy—and "Let Yourself Go" speeds up the punk well past 65 mph. The trio manages to experiment on the funky soul strut of "Kill the DJ". No man behind a computer or turntables will survive their swagger…

"Fall For You" fells sensitively slick in a '50s vibe, while the closer, and first single, "Oh Love" is as massive as anything U2 or Coldplay have turned out, but there's still the right amount of gutter grit.

Whether you dig pop, punk, rock, or whatever-catchy-sonic-poison-exists, ¡Uno! is for you. It's proof that rock is alive and well. Leave it to the punks, and there are two more of these on the horizon!

—Rick Florino
09.20.12

What's your favorite Green Day song?

Get the album on Tuesday September 25!

Tags: Green Day, AC/DC, The Beatles, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool, Drake, U2, Coldplay

jueves, 23 de agosto de 2012

News: Green Day "Oh Love" Song Review — 5 out of 5 stars

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:13:18

Green Day "Oh Love" Song Review — 5 out of 5 stars - By ARTISTdirect.com editor in chief Rick Florino…

So, how do you evolve after two stellar rock operas?

If you're Green Day, you plot three big albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!, for successive release in the mere span of months. The first single from ¡Uno!, "Oh Love", sounds as grandiose as any of the band's massive conceptual fare, but with an old school rock twist.

"Oh Love" is Green Day at their biggest and most brilliant. Billie Joe Armstrong's hulking guitar moves in perfect sync with Tre Cool's calculated beats as Mike Dirnt holds down a smooth low end. Armstrong croons out the chorus flawlessly, bringing Beatles-style pop brilliance into an arena rock setting.

As the melody careens, Armstrong pulls off an elegantly harmonious solo befitting of the song's bombast. As far as Green Day hits go, this is one of their best, and the perfect prelude to the triple salvo of records on the horizon.

We're already in love, knowing ¡Uno! is bound to be a classic.

—Rick Florino
08.20.12

Watch the song's sexy music video below!

Did you dig the song?

Tags: Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, Mike Dirnt, The Beatles

martes, 3 de julio de 2012

'AMERICAN IDIOT' REVIEW: SEATTLE TIMES

'AMERICAN IDIOT' REVIEW: SEATTLE TIMES | Greenday.com Skip to main content area HomeNewsMusicPicsVidsTourIdiot ClubStore Subnav ExtrasRingtonesVoteInternationalRock BandFoxboro Hot TubsRusty Wired Series FleeceHoven Vision SunglassesAmerican Idiot BILLIE'S TWITTER E-MAILRSSITUNESTWITTERFACEBOOKMYSPACEYOUTUBE Sign up for Green Day's Mailing List 'AMERICAN IDIOT' REVIEW: SEATTLE TIMES

"Silence is the enemy/ Against your urgency/So rally up the demons of your soul," goes the roaring anthem "Know Your Enemy," by the American punk band Green Day.

The urgency, the rallying, the demons — they're all right up front in "American Idiot," the invigorating Broadway broadside that rocks out to the beat of Green Day's hit album of the same title.

With a hot stage band, a tireless tribe of thrash-dancing young performers and an exciting, full-sensory staging by Michael Mayer, the 2010 show blasts the youth-rock musical idiom into the 21st century.

To a receptive crowd (advice: listen to the album before you go), this spectacle can get the adrenaline pumping. It can also be a poignant window into generational aimlessness.

That great car suspended above the Broadway set is missing, but Christine Jones' design still provides a back wall of TV monitors hyperactively spewing pop-culture and political images from the George Bush era. And choreographer Steven Hoggett's pounding, mob-flash dances mesh wonderfully with Tom Kitt's enriched arrangements of the Green Day score.

"American Idiot," like its youth-musical predecessors, follows a group of young misfits through a tumultuous, bittersweet rite of passage. But Johnny (fiercely played, in fine voice, by Van Hughes), and his pals Will (Jake Epstein) and Tunny (Scott J. Campbell), aren't arty squatters (a la "Rent"), or flower children (a la "Hair"). They're bored, isolated suburban kids drifting into military service, parenthood and drug addiction.

That makes for a thin book by Mayer and Green Day singer-lyricist Billie Joe Armstrong, which frames the boys as symbols of a disenchanted but directionless generation rather than as distinct, compelling individuals.

What's most expressive here? The raw vigor. The furious and tender score, with its protest hard rock (the title tune, "21 Guns," "Give Me Novacaine") and sensitive, insightful ballads ("Wake Me Up When September Ends," "Whatsername"). And the aerial pas de deux of a badly wounded Iraq war vet and a radiant Middle Eastern angel.

In-your-face profanity, sexuality and drug abuse make it unlikely that a high-school edition will spin off any time soon.

But young rock fans will surely get into the music, and may understand the fog of malaise Johnny and friends must work through. "American Idiot" has no answers for their futures, but it raises some good questions.

Full review at Seattle Times: HERE

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