Below is a lightly-edited and formatted version of a debate between TGEFM’s Quirijn Foeken, Mike Elfers, and Julie River as to which is the better Green Day album: Dookie, Insomniac, or Warning. I stopped listening to Green Day after Dookie because I think that album is a perfect example of what a major studio wanted “punk” to be, and Green Day went along with it, so I really don’t have a dog in this fight and wash my hands of the whole ordeal. What are YOUR thoughts? – Jeff Sorley (Head Editor)
Quirijn: Recently, my fellow TGEFM contributor Mike Elfers, stated on Facebook that Green Day’s Insomniac is a better album than Dookie. I immediately took action and reported him to the Facebook moderators. They told me that his statement was considered “free speech” and that “Green Day isn’t real punk anyway.” So I decided to prove with a few points why Dookie is indeed better than Insomniac. Then Julie joined in arguing for Warning…
Better songs
Quirijn: We can probably end the whole debate right here. Dookie has better songs. Better yet, there are no bad songs there. Of course there are the hits: “Basket Case,” “Longview,” “When I Come Around.” These songs are hits because are just that good, not because punk become the cool thing for a moment. It’s safe to say to punk became cool because of Dookie. Of course Insomniac has great songs as well. “Stuart and the Avenue” has one of the greatest basslines ever. But so does “Sassafras Roots.” “Armatage” has a great drum intro. But “Burnout” has a drum solo that is actually nice to listen too. Nobody liked a drum solo before and after ever again.
Mike: My first step in this argument is to just throw out the singles to the crows. “When I Come Around” is boring, “Brain Stew” is boring, “Geek Stink Breath” is the trying-too-hard to be angsty stepsister of the trying-too-hard to be angsty “Longview.” Green Day is a legendary band, so their hits are like fucking Christmas carols at this point. I am officially tossing the hits out this discussion so we can stay focused on the PRIZE here. Dookie is castrated, my dude. What you are listening to is just pieces of the Lookout Records roster’s best songwriting tricks mashed into Billie Joe’s channeling of Lint Ivy’s aesthetic. It has no identity. It is like the mainstream wanted a piece of that little spark of attention. “She” is great, I don’t disagree, but “86” is a better evolvement, and with a kick of energy that effortlessly ditches the simple drums ’n bass production to the wolves. Speaking of drums, and drum solos specifically, they belong at live shows via reprises, not albums, and I’m a drummer.
Julie: Mikey has inexplicably taken up the foolhardy strategy of literally tossing all of the best songs from both Dookie and Insomniac out of the argument. Which is fine because I’m arguing for Warning, which has virtually no hits on it. Only two of the tracks from the album even get played at live shows, and none of the songs get radio airplay. But while Mikey wants to argue that unappreciated music is inherently better (the hipster argument) and Quirijn seems to want to argue that popular songs are popular for a reason, I’d argue that neither extreme is true. Some hit songs are good (“When I Come Around”) and others are terrible (“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”) just like some underground songs are great (“2000 Light Years Away”) and some are terrible (“Dominated Love Slave”). The tastes of the masses are largely arbitrary and aren’t a good argument for or against any of these songs on any of these albums. Warning is 12 tracks that don’t try too hard to be pop hits and don’t try too hard to be fucked up, dark punk songs either. They’re just clean, crisp, perfect pop songs.
Better sound
Quirijn: When Dookie came out everybody agreed that nobody put a record before that sounded so damn good. It’s recorded very well. It’s mixed perfectly. The guitars sound huge but not to overwelming. The drums are crispy and clear. Billie Armstrong’s vocals are tight and bright. All the basslines are popping up when Mike Dirnt is doing his moves. Insomniac was made by pretty much the same team. However, the guitar sound is much darker and doensn’t have the same impact. The vocals are buried in songs like “Bab’s Uvala Who?”
Mike: Oh so you are one of those TREBLE YELL people?
Dookie is certainly crisp, but Billie Joe’s baby blue (I have one behind me so no hate) Fender Strat is one of the downfalls of the record. I’m not going to take the time to confirm that there are humbuckers supporting Insomniac’s guitar tone. Jerry Finn (RIP) has a documented order-of-operations to render Tom Delonge’s twanky dinky tone mammoth somewhere on the internet, perhaps someone else did that on Insomniac, but if sonic clarity of vocals is the hill you’re going to die on I suggest you buy some better speakers or headphones, comrade.
Julie: I’ve never heard anyone argue before that cleaner, crisper sound makes for a better punk record. I guess those copies of Misfits Static Age that sell for $1,500 on vinyl are worthless now that we know that clearer vocals make a better record. Of course, I’m probably not the right one to be making this argument because I’m arguing that their best album is the one with equally crisp vocals over a practically undistorted guitar, but as a lifelong punk fan I’m frankly flabbergasted to see someone arguing that clearer vocals make a better punk record.
Better sequencing
Quirijn: Dookie has it all. Songs that energize you like “Welcome To Paradise,” “Emenius Sleepus” and “In The End.” Slower songs like “Pulling Teeth” and “Longview” that gives you some time to breathe. An acoustic closer (“F.O.D.”) that ends explosive. Dookie is such a great ride. Insomniac is pretty much all the same tempo and ends with one of their weakest songs from that era. It’s just a bit boring.
Mike: Dookie certainly did have a lot of songs that were rerecordings of previous material, if that is what you mean by bringing songs like “Welcome to Paradise.” The Kerplunk version of this song is absolutely better, and the bridge offers more ambiance and honesty. The opening of “Armatage Shanks” sews so neatly to the last pound of “Walking Contradiction” that it practically begs the listener to give it another listen upon completion. Ending an album with an acoustic song is predictable and childish, and quite frankly I think the band sneaking another song about masturbation shouldn’t be some flex as to how well it aged.
Julie: Warning does pretty much all the same things but without the benefit of a distortion pedal, which is basically like playing a video game on hard mode while blindfolded. It has fast, rollicking tracks like “Church on Sunday” and “Minority,” slow, weird artsy songs like “Misery,” and—hey, look, it ends on an acoustic song, one that I’ve seen the band end a show on while confetti rained down over Billie Joe alone with an acoustic guitar. It’s a beautiful song that beats out “FOD” and “Walking Contradiction” any day.
Liking Insomniac more is some contrarian bullshit
Quirijn: So punk became popular because of Dookie. Insomniac sounds more ‘punk’. “Therefore it must be the better album!” “If everybody likes Dookie it can’t be better!” “I am punk so I can’t like the same records as my classmates!” “Fuck the system!” “I smoke cigarettes!”
Look I have nothing against contrarians. Some of my best friends are contriarian. But liking Insomniac more is where I draw the line. It’s ok to like stuff that’s popular. Unless it’s U2. Fuck those guys.
Mike: Contrarian? This album was a big, big, hit.
This was Green Day’s chance to really show us what they want to do after the limitations of the Dook. I can’t begin to list the amount of documented pressure the 90’s majors put on newly signed punk bands in a post-Alternative era. The labels were fishing, and I have good odds that there are aspects about the record the band still despises because of that micromanagement. Green Day has, and will continue to play ball, and rightfully so. They earned their success, and their entire major discography can speak to that, but to compare the two albums based on “what Dookie did versus what Insomniac did commercially… (Dookie was more successful.)” you’re choosing nostalgia over talent.
Julie: I was in grade school when Insomniac came out so I can’t really speak to how well received it was amongst the generation whose testicles had already descended, but Insomniac was the album that caused everyone to put away their Green Day t-shirts because their older brothers told them that Green Day was over. Sure, lots of people bought Insomniac because it came out about a year and a half after Dookie became the highest selling punk record of all time, but how many actually liked it. Pretty much every single flopped except “Brain Stew.” Which is not to say that people were right to hate Insomniac, but just that record sales and mainstream popularity are really weird metrics to judge punk by. Without looking it up, I’m sure Warning sold a fraction of the copies of the other two and that’s okay (Julie’s right. In worldwide sales Dookie = ~19.5m, Insomniac = ~5.8m, and Warning = ~3.5m. -editor).
Warning wasn’t following hot on the heels of a certified diamond punk album. On top of that, Warning was trying something way more experimental than the other two albums: a low distortion punk album. Sure, Insomniac was trying something daring in that, while Dookie matched ironically upbeat music with dark lyrics, Insomniac paired similarly dark lyrics with approximately dark music, and the public was not ready for that after Dookie. But Warning stands out as the true red-headed stepchild of the Green Day catalog. Warning branches out from their usual cynicism to some—gasp!—optimistic songs? It brings in other instruments that you don’t normally hear in punk like an accordion, and, as stated before, it’s much lighter on the distortion than any other Green Day record. It’s their riskiest album, and that risk really produced their best album.
Closing arguments
Quirijn: So our head editor in chief asked to write closing arguments for this whole thing. Do I really need those? I think I made my point. Hey, maybe we can all agree that the lastest Green Day album was terrible?
Mike: “But it’s art so it is subjective!…” I think I started this fight over a Facebook thread over a year ago, and I believe I won this fight, but while Green Day’s refusal to go away drifts me further from them each passing year, much like my so-called friendships with Quirijn and Julie, at least none of us picked those atrocious Uno, Dos, Tre! albums. BLECH.
Julie: Look, I’m more than happy to put both Dookie and Insomniac in my top three Green Day albums, but it goes Warning, then Insomniac, and then Dookie, and then American Idiot which we have nobody here to champion because we’re all old as dirt while all the Gen Zers watch on in horror as we fail to include their favorite album in the debate.
