Hooray for Green Day
When news came in recently that Green Day is one of the 15 nominees to the esteemed class of inductees for the 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it brought a big smile to my face. After all, Green Day is one of the very few remaining active bands from my youth that I had grown up listening to. A band like them will always have my utmost respect as they have faithfully and genuinely represented for decades the music scene they hail from.
Indeed, it has been a long time coming for this punk-rock trio to have finally reached this pinnacle in their careers which have spanned nearly three decades. It is the highest of honors to become a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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Green Day kept on going
Even when times were not in their favor–specifically during the mid-90’s when they were bombarded with accusations of “selling out” for reasons which still baffle me–that very challenging period for the band did not stop them from continuing to make music. It would seem like a “demolition job” meant to derail the band from achieving their goals, as they received some of the harshest criticisms I have ever read and heard.
I can still recall reading an issue of the Rolling Stone magazine many years ago with Green Day on its cover, and the subject of focus of the main article was about them allegedly “selling out”. When I think of it now, it makes me reflect that a band like Green Day got so much flak just for signing with a major record label and for tweaking their sound just a little bit in order for their music to appeal to a much wider and broader audience base.
In my mind’s eye, I believe they did make the right career decision to sign up with a major record label that would help get their music across different sides of the globe. Thus, we music aficionados, music goers, rockers, and even occasional listeners–all benefited from that crucial career move they had made in that decade because from that moment on, we would be introduced to such a unique and captivating band, Green Day.
What Green Day experienced during that difficult phase in their careers reminds me of the old saying in the music industry, which is, “Would you rather be a starving artist, or a successful artist ?” The possibility very soon of Green Day becoming certified Rock and Roll Hall of Famers has redeemed them already. That is what I call “poetic justice” !
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Every fan has his own story to tell
It does not matter if you are an old fan or a new fan of Green Day, each of us have our own story to tell about how we first became a fan of the band. As for me, and I have mentioned this before in my previous article about them, it was their album entitled ‘Nimrod’ that instantly made me follow the band from then on. It was listening to their now classic tracks like “Hitchin’ A Ride” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” that got me hooked to the music of Green Day.
It really does further cement the theory that when a musical act has fans coming from a wide cross section of differing generations, they are something truly special and they have such a universal appeal about them that is inexplicable. Yet, when you listen to their songs you would instantly understand why almost everyone knows them and has heard of them.
Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool of Green Day were once deemed as the “young punk kids” who merely echoed their idols, and whose music would only allegedly appeal to a certain demographic, and that they would never become anything more than another band who wore their musical influences on their sleeves.
Boy, were all those cynics so off-track to prematurely judge them and wave them off in that way as those youngsters then are now respected veterans ! The band they had formed nearly three decades ago have now inspired countless others to form their own.
Green Day will soon take their rightful place in Rock and Roll history, to be among their idols and rock heroes.
Hooray for Green Day!
