The Return of Green Day?

Ok, so pursuant to a thread last week on my Google+ page about Green Day records, for the past week I’ve been checking out their latest ‘trilogy’ for lack of a better word, Uno! Dos! Tré!.

I remember being nonplussed when they started releasing these. I have to admit that my first reaction was, they’re releasing THREE records? WTF? Ok, they’ve finally jumped the shark.

The records were released to relatively little fanfare, especially after BJA’s on-stage blow up and subsequent rock star cliché ‘admission to a substance abuse program’ both overshadowed the records themselves and also caused the cancellation of the majority of the live shows that were in support their releases.

I remember joking with a buddy that maybe BJA’s tirade was ‘orchestrated’ to get press the day before one of the records (I think the first) dropped. If so, the plan backfired.

All that being what it is, now that I’ve given the records their chance, I think they’re solid. As often with double albums, I often wonder if they shouldn’t have just focused more and whittled it down to two records, but then, well, the novelty would be lost, I guess, since they’re three of ’em right? (Well actually there’s four now, these sessions were the first to include touring guitarist Jason White – the now ‘official’ 4th member of Green Day, so where’s his record?).

I don’t think that this material is as monumental as say American Idiot or 21st Century Breakdown, but then again, I don’t think it’s supposed to be. I think that’s maybe part of my hang up. After the grandiose expanse of the last two records, I’m actually having trouble adjusting back to two minute, 3 chord bashers. I think my inner prog – punk rock love child needed more.

Now that I’ve let the set grow on me though, I’m digging it. There’s a few tunes that I could do without and a few that are drop dead awesome – as would be expected in an artillery of 37 tracks, but I’m getting past my initial instinct to find the characters in the tunes (as I did with the last two records) and just listen to the songs themselves, and I’m finding as a whole, they’re pretty good.

It’s like going from standing against the back wall of the club, nodding your head in pensive reflection of the deeper meaning of it all, and getting back into the pit at the edge of the stage and throwing elbows again.