Saviors - Green Day (2024)
Green Day sounds a bit different 30 years on than they did on Dookie. That’s because the pop end of punk has moved in that span, but the pop end of punk has moved in large part because Green Day have kept moving it. It’s probably not fair to call them innovators, but this style of music wouldn’t sound like it does if not for what Green Day has done over these last 30 years.
It’s funny listening to this newer record a day after Dookie, and noticing how many small bits and pieces–melodic ideas, little fills and pickups with drums and bass phrases, rhythmic tics–are still the same for the band even though the songs themselves have changed.
Like many older artists, navel gazing has given way in some cases to a wider political and social conscience. Some lyrics drip this outlook, while others hint at it. Also like many older artists, you get more looking backwards at what used to be, for good or ill.
Most of the tracks here aren’t complete throwbacks although a few–Strange Days Are Here Again, for instance–sound like they’ve been thawed out of a glacier from 1994.
There’s also the occasional hint of something genuinely new, like the more jangle pop of Suzie Chapstick or Bobby Sox, which both thematically and musically sounds like somebody ought to alert the lawyers of fellow 90s survivors Weezer.
There’s also One Eyed Bastard, which sounds like a bit of revenge for the fact that Pink and Max Martin basically recorded a Green Day song with So What and now Billy Joe is turning the tables.
I wouldn’t argue if you said that Green Day are basically the same band they were 30 years ago, but it’s hard to argue with what works.
