Berkeley, Calif. pop-punk trio Green Day has grabbed Rolling Stone’s number-one spot for best single, best album and top artist of the decade.
Moments before the opening curtain of “American Idiot,” the musical theater debut of the punk band Green Day, a t-shirted house manager took the stage at Berkeley Repertory Theater for the tradition of reminding audience members to turn off their cellphones and unwrap their candies. This being a musical by Green Day, though, it wasn’t your typical curtain speech. “Are you ready to rock tonight?” shouted the house manager, John Gay. And sure enough, the crowd roared back, “Yeah!” Such is the rowdy mood surrounding “American Idiot,” a rock opera drawn largely from Green Day’s multiplatinum 2004 album of the… Read more »
Green Day is continuing their march to an inevitable Number One album, setting up rock-opera shop at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom on May 18th for the East Coast live debut of 21st Century Breakdown. The band’s Bay Area guerilla gigs in April all featured the record in its entirety. But at the Bowery, Green Day played a pocket-jukebox edition of the album, starting with the opening title track and the first single, “Know Your Enemy.” Then the new six-piece band – with singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool assisted on guitars, keyboards and extra… Read more »
Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you won’t be able to find it at your local Wal-Mart. The band says the giant superstore chain refused to stock its latest CD “21st Century Breakdown” because Wal-Mart wanted the album edited for language and content, and they refused. “Wal-Mart has become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won’t carry our record because they wanted us to censor it,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said in a recent interview. While Wal-Mart sells CDs from acts known for raunchy content, they offer customers the “clean” version of… Read more »
Despite the fact that Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown will only have three days of sales rather than a full seven when retail figures are compiled next week, the album is projected to debut at Number One. Even with its unorthodox release date (albums traditionally hit stores on Tuesdays; Breakdown is due on Friday, May 15th), the LP is still expected to come close to the band’s career-best when 267,000 copies of American Idiot sold during its debut week in 2004. With a handful of weak-selling chart returnees and no other major debuts out this week, Green Day are all… Read more »
Green Day has been delivering power-punk to the mainstream since Billie Joe Armstrong clutched a monkey in “Longview” nearly 15 years ago. The trio has done it all with one foot firmly entrenched in its hometown East Bay punk scene, stating its allegiance to gutter punks and Gilman Street at every possible chance. It’s been both a blessing and a curse, eternally indebted to the past, but inching ever closer to the future. With the reigning punk royalty out of the picture the past couple years, the number of punk releases declined sharply. Anyone hoping Green Day would bring… Read more »
Paramore will release the follow-up to their breakout album Riot! in September, the band’s label confirmed yesterday. “We made a record that is exactly what we set out to make,” fiery frontwoman Hayley Williams said on the band’s LiveJournal page. “There’s fast, there’s slow, and in between… happy, angry, desperate and over it. And I can’t believe it’s real.” For their third album, the Nashville power punks worked with Rob Cavallo, who produced Green Day’s American Idiot, Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King and Paramore’s own contributions to the Twilight soundtrack, including the hit single “Decode.” “When… Read more »
Green Day played the biggest show of its week-long tour of the San Francisco Bay Area April 14th, performing its upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown, in its entirety. After only eight full rehearsals of the opera and those two club dates, the six-piece Green Day – Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool with guitarist Jason White, keyboardist Jason Freese and guitarist Jeff Matika – had the Quadrophenia-like hang of 21st Century Breakdown’s classic rock melodies and lifetime-punk drive down solid. “I”m not fuckin’ around,” Armstrong crowed in “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” and there was no insecurity in the way… Read more »
NEW YORK — Green Day will appear at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on May 18, just three days after the release of the band’s hotly anticipated eighth studio album, “21st Century Breakdown,” MTV reports. The small club show is a rarity for the band, whose last album, 2004’s “American Idiot” sold more than 12 million copies. But the group has done some guerilla-style gigs in its hometown of San Francisco this past week, including a show at the 500-capacity DNA Lounge According to the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog, the band played “21st Century Breakdown” in its entirety before running… Read more »
Green Day’s “21st Century Breakdown”– the band’s eighth studio record and first since 2004’s Grammy-winning “American Idiot” – has a firm release date: May 15. While Tuesday is the traditional release day for albums in the U.S., the band is following the lead of labelmates Metallica and dropping its album worldwide on a Friday. First single “Know Your Enemy” will hit idobi Radio and digital retailers in April. “’American Idiot’ marked a really high bar for us,” Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong tells Rolling Stone. “It’s easy to go, ‘OK, we can just write a collection of songs.’ But… Read more »
