Punk’s not dead it’s just a millennial

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Pop-punk royalty Green Day has come out with a pile of Dookie merchandise in honor of the seminal album’s upcoming 30th anniversary in February 2024. Commemorative dog bowls and brown-splattered albums are just some of the mementos available for pre-order for devoted fans.

If it seems excessive to start the celebration months in advance, that’s only because Dookie and Green Day have yet to receive the recognition they deserve for their impact on the music industry. The band’s smash hit paved the way for an entire musical movement in the ’90s, and their influence can still be felt in everything from the pop hits of Billie Eilish to Fall Out Boy’s emotive rock.

The Dookie revolution began in Berkeley, Calif., at the Alternative Music Foundation on 924 Gilman St. — known simply as “Gilman” to fans. The venue catered to punks, metalheads and grunge fans, and organizers prided themselves on the exclusive showcase of underground talent. The worst sin a band could commit was making it big. That’s exactly what Green Day did.

Redesigned Dookie album art. Courtesy photo.

Their third studio album, Dookie, was perfectly curated to transcend the homogeneous sounds of post-grunge punk and achieve true “pop” popularity with its angsty earworms. Songs like “Basket Case” blended discussions of mental health and sexuality with classic punk aggression and a chord progression from Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”

While classic punk celebrated a paired down, almost garage band sound, songs like “She” demonstrated Green Day’s thoughtful melodies and precision on their instruments.

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was leading the grunge movement with angry and depressing lyrics that revealed the singer’s crumbling mental health. In contrast, Green Day’s singer-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong used humor and catchy tunes to enhance his explorations of teenage heartache and the pains of losing your childhood.

“I’m not growing up, I’m just burning out,” Armstrong sings in “Burnout,” while Tré Cool hammers out one of his distinctive drum beats. Coupled with the talents of Mike Dirnt on bass, the album took the music world by storm. In short, their sound was what the scene needed to make punk relevant again.

Reprise Records, the decidedly-not-punk company founded by Frank Sinatra, picked up Dookie. For landing such a lucrative contract, fellow punks labeled Green Day a sellout and banned it from playing at Gilman. That, in itself, made the album all the more punk.

As a result of their revolutionary sound, Dookie went on to earn a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album, a diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America and to sell more than 20 million copies.

Dookie’s popularity sparked a punk renaissance and opened the music industry to a variety of alternative genres. Bands like Blink-182 — which had been struggling to find a dedicated fanbase — skyrocketed to fame in Green Day’s wake. In turn, Green Day went on to inspire the next generation of bands beloved by edgy teens with big emotions.

Now nostalgic bands like Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy (FOB) owe their sounds and popularity to Dookie’s success. For that reason, FOB inducted Green Day into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

In his induction speech, Patrick Stump, lead singer of FOB, said “a silhouette of [Armstrong] playing guitar would be as recognizable in posture to any punk rock kid as Michael Jordan’s mid-air dunk would be to a sports fan.”

Even Gen Z “Queen of Pop” Billie Eilish — the first artist born in the 2000s to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 — says her musical inspiration can be traced back to Green Day.

“Growing up, there was no band more important to me or my brother,” Eilish said at the 2019 American Music Awards.

Green Day’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of punk made room for the diverse bands and genres on the radio today. The music industry owes a lot to three friends and a turd-themed album. Pop star or small-town reporter, everyone should wish Dookie a very happy early birthday.