Back in April I wrote that Green Day was releasing an album trilogy ¡UNO! ¡DOS! ¡TRE! later this year. We got a taste of that offering with the first single “Oh Love.” I must say, I am not impressed. Maybe because I wasn’t a huge fan of 21st Century Breakdown. Maybe because it seems like Green Day has fallen into the same pit as The Offspring, in that they have gotten older. Usually that isn’t a bad thing – unless you are in the punk rock business. I don’t hear any grit. No defiance. No sketchy pastimes. On their Sound Cloud page, Ghislain Hetfield Plaut’s comment at 0.39 sums it all up: “Where is the punk band?”
Good question. While the rest of the timeline is filled with comments gushing about how awesome the song is, I got to wondering, “How long have I been making excuses for Green Day?” After all, Dookie was the first record I listened to all the way through multiple times without skipping a song. And I realized Shenanigans was where it happened. There was a slow commercialization of their sound from then on. They kept me believing it wasn’t true because every record following had a few songs that made me think, “Ok, the Green Day I know is still there.” I really hope the rest of the album is better, or this may just be a skip.
Green Day’s “Oh Love” on Sound Cloud
My realization of Green Day’s demise from the days of Dookie yore was when American Idiot came out. While there were some decent tracks, I realized then and there that this was the end of the Green Day that I still love to this day.
Apologists and sympathizers stress that American Idiot’s sound was intentional because it’s supposed to dictate a rock opera, but these same people dismiss the main point altogether: the sound has changed and the band decided to become very commercialized. I understand that a band does change sound and style over time (for the most part), but the sound hasn’t really changed much since that album.
This song has some of the typical Green Day elements and chord progressions, but it’s generic, very generic, and it makes me a bit weary on how this upcoming series of albums are going to sound.