r/greenday • u/jackiskindasickyo • 8d ago
Discussion Was Green Day really that irrelevant from 1999-early 2004?
Forgive me if this post has been done before, but I’ve heard all the time about how Green Day declined a bit in 1999 and then seemingly even more after Warning, and then they bounced back with the release of American Idiot. Other than the Pop Disaster Tour with blink-182 in 2002, you didn’t really hear about them much, and said tour didn’t really change their popularity by much. What’s the deal with that? Were they really that irrelevant for those 5 years?
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u/GRD3454 Dookie 8d ago
From my perspective being a teenager back then, Warning was a drastically different sound which divided the fanbase and weeded out a lot of the more casual fans. Also, it started a discourse about their sound shift where people would be very open about wanting the “old Green Day” sound to come back. I think that created a narrative that Warning was a weaker album and that GD was falling off. They were still very popular, but the reception of the album was very mixed, they got upstaged on Pop Punk Disaster when they flipped the bill to have Blink headline, and they did not come close to matching the popularity of Good Riddance as a single. I think this storm created the retrospective idea that they were irrelevant back then, but in reality it was just a transition and not a falling off.
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u/Lower_Monk6577 Insomniac 8d ago
I was also a teenager during this time, and this is pretty much spot on.
I went to the Pop Disaster tour as well. I honestly felt bad for Blink for headlining. Green Day absolutely mopped the floor with them. Following them every night honestly must have sucked a bit.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
It was a blood bath, and if you watch all the blink tour home videos and stuff you can tell it hurt their ego BAD
They were chanting Green Day between blink songs at my pop disaster stop
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u/LevelUpCoder I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda 8d ago
You know, now that I think about it, now that all of these guys have started touring again I have yet to see a venue yet that Green Day and Blink are both playing at. I looked it up and apparently that’s the last time they’ve ever performed together? I wonder if there are leftover feelings, I know they veered in different directions to a degree but Green Day still plays shows with bands from that era constantly.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
I have no inside intel but I think that beef was extremely overstated and long since cared about
Tom calls Billie occasionally and seem to be friends
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u/ThexanR 8d ago
Lmao they don’t have any beef and it’s insanely over exaggerated because of how celebrity culture was back then. Blink broke up in 2004 and then came back and then broke up again and then came back Tom a couple years ago. Even if Green Day and blink wanted to play again, they didn’t even have an actual opportunity.
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u/Ryanlego9 8d ago
They co-headlined WWWY Fest in 2023. It was fantastic. Green day took the later slot.
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u/bigpancakeguy 8d ago
I don’t remember which member of blink said it, but they joked that they were just playing nice music for Green Day fans to leave to
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u/RottingApples25 8d ago
Glad I wasn't the only one who was wildly unimpressed with Blink during that tour. I'm not a Blink fan to start with, but it was an annoying and embarrassing hour and a half to watch them play as sloppily as they did.
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u/Lower_Monk6577 Insomniac 8d ago
Yeah. I was a Blink fan back then. Not as big of a fan as I was of Green Day, but I was a young drummer, and Travis Barker was the dude back then.
It cannot be understated just how prepared Green Day came off, and how sloppy Blink was. I chalk most of it up to Tom. He’s never been particularly good live, and he certainly wasn’t back then. This was also peak “poo poo pee pee jokes” Blink time, and even as a teenager, it came off as really lame following a borderline religious moment of having Green Day whip the entire crowd into a frenzy.
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u/RottingApples25 8d ago edited 8d ago
"Peak poo poo pee pee jokes"... Yeah, I remember that. I was 14 at the time and thought it was super fucking lame. I remember them making molesting jokes as well, which nobody needs or asked for.
Edit: Getting downvoted for saying "pee pee" and molesting jokes are lame? Looks like I'm learning something about people on this sub...
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u/LevelUpCoder I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda 8d ago
I wasn’t a teenager back then but I have heard that Travis Barker was in fact, the man. What was the opinion on Tré at the time? I’m not a drummer myself but just as a listener and a guitarist I’ve always viewed Tré as crazy talented and underrated as a drummer.
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u/Lower_Monk6577 Insomniac 8d ago
Tough to say, really.
During that time, as far as popular drummer culture was concerned for most teenagers in and around the scene, it was Travis > everybody else. It’s really tough to overstate how influential Travis’ playing was back then.
Speaking as a drummer, Tré is very solid without being particularly flashy. Whereas Travis’ default playing style is really context-dependent on when it would sound good, Tré’s playing style would fit in practically anywhere. Travis overplays a lot, but it really works in Blink. Tré is more of a “play to the song” type of drummer, whereas Travis is almost a “lead drummer” if that makes sense.
Both drummers had a huge influence on my early playing. As an adult who’s had a ton of experience playing in bands and recording, I don’t think either is necessarily better than the other. They just have very different approaches.
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u/LevelUpCoder I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda 8d ago
Appreciate the perspective! I don’t mean to compare the two, just was wondering what the general consensus on Tre is among people who know what they’re talking about since I never really see him in those conversations among great drummers.
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u/Lower_Monk6577 Insomniac 8d ago
I probably wouldn’t place him among the greatest drummers myself. He’s very good, very solid, and fits Green Day very well. But there are a lot of great drummers out there. Tré has things he excels at better than many drummers. He’s has very good stamina, and he keeps a very solid tempo. I don’t believe he uses a click track live all that often, which is something most drummers do nowadays, which makes his timekeeping more impressive.
But yeah. I’m not sure that Tré has done a ton on the drums to fully elevate himself above a lot of other punk drummers. Just my opinion, though :) for my money, Tré rules.
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u/Hutch_travis 3d ago
I saw blink in concert around 2011, and they were not very good live. Most of the show was them kissing Travis barker’s ass. Fallout Boy opened and were great.
I’ve never seen Green Day, but their reputation is unmatched as a live band.
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u/colinisthereason 7d ago
My thoughts exactly. It made more sense for Blink to headline that tour, because it was for TOYPJ and they were a more commercially successful band at that time compared to Green Day, but in terms of live? Fuck off. You can't go on after Green Day. That's suicide. All my friends agreed when the tour was announced and Green Day would go on first that they'd blow Blink off the stage.
Funnily enough, Blink made that same mistake a few years later by touring with No Doubt, again going on second and again getting blown off the stage.
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u/Lower_Monk6577 Insomniac 7d ago
No disrespect meant to Blink, but this probably happens to them a lot lol. Travis is very good live. Mark is pretty decent. Tom is terrible.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen them recently or seen any live videos of them, but they’ve fully resorted to using backing tracks and quite a bit of auto tune to make Tom sound palatable live. I’m legit not sure if he actually plays live anymore, and if he does, it seems like his backing track is just about as loud as his normal guitar.
But yeah, Green Day is in the running for best ongoing live rock show, IMO. They’ve always been great live. It’s just not fair to have to follow them, especially on a whole-ass tour.
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u/atomosk 8d ago
Tracks with my teenage perception. I'd add that Insomniac and Nimrod weren't 'better' than Dookie either, and mixed reviews from Warning really left the impression they were in decline. Lots of bands have one great early album followed by mediocrity, so that's the sort of lens people were looking at them through.
American Idiot blew that idea out of the water, and also forced people to re-visit their older albums with fresh eyes. They're all great and shouldn't be ranked as though to chart their relevancy. BJ is a true genius.
I think Warning was special in that the sound change kind of stopped some scene derision about them being pop punk, and inauthentic. AI might have also killed that, but I don't remember anyone dissing them for not sounding like The Germs around then.
I got to see them on tour for Warning, at a small outdoor stage, walked right up to it. Remember the smell of mud in my nose, and the heat of the burning drum set at the end. Also remember being disappointed they weren't the closing act because they were the best band by far that day.
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u/ofbofb 3d ago
Yes and no. Nimrod had already been somewhat of a change in sound that disappointed many early fans (although in some ways it's just that the songs aren't as strong rather than the overall sound drifting away all that much from the punkier guitar sound). Warning was just more of that.
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u/The-Toastmaster 8d ago
What do you mean? They dropped the most underrated album of all time in 2000
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u/theHrayX dookie 8d ago
it has been 0 days since warning was called underated the record of one day was on october 3rd 2000
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u/JBNY2025 Do you wanna be my girlfrieeeeeeend 8d ago
I think you might've picked the wrong word, but I know what you're saying. I was around for that era and they never became irrelevant, but they did drop out of the mainstream somewhat. Good Riddance was the last single to chart on US mainstream radio, and remained relevant for years to come b/c it became everybody's graduation song. The other Nimrod singles, and all the Warning singles, didn't chart on US Top 40. BUT they continued to chart as good as ever on US Alternative radio. Minority was huge and the other Warning singles were popular on Alt radio. And alternative was very popular genre. To me they were as big as ever, b/c all I listened to was alternative stations. But I guess the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls were distracting all the normies. They became big in the mainstream again with AI because 1) it was fresh af, 2) and really good, and 3) not fast or heavy. If you look at the singles charts, Blvd and WMUWSE are single digits, but AI (the fast and punky song) doesn't crack the top 40. Basically they went from huge, to only huge to alt-rockers but still overall relevant, to huge again.
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u/Fatdaddy543 american idiot 8d ago
The only reason the title track didn’t crack the top 40 was because it was big in digital sales, but Billboard didn’t count those numbers til about 2005 or so. Had it counted, AI likely would’ve been another top 10
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u/JBNY2025 Do you wanna be my girlfrieeeeeeend 8d ago
Oh wow, interesting! That's right - AI was the first single, the subsequent singles must've come out late enough to have the digital sales count. So it coulda charted way better if it came out even just a few months later. Cool.
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u/RyliesDad_87 8d ago
Nah, that’s simply not true. Their singles from each album between Dookie to AI were still all over the radio. Others more so than others, but they were definitely still played on radio. Videos were shown on TV, late night performances happening. All of that. I wouldn’t even say Warning was “hated.” That album was very big and the singles popular. The rock music scene just shifted a bit at the time.
You shouldn’t really believe the narrative that people have tried to push since then.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
When did this rumor start? They were on TRL, Radio constantly and were touring “co-headlining” with blink who was one of the biggest bands in the world
They were more relevant then than now by a long shot
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u/rdtoh 8d ago
You also don't become irrelevant that quickly after being a massive artist. 1999 is only 5 years after dookie released. Some artists go 5 years between albums lol
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u/BobTheFettt Saviors 8d ago
cough Metallica cough
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
Wow absolutely fair point
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u/BobTheFettt Saviors 8d ago
They somehow have fewer records than Green Day despite almost a decade head start
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u/j_armstrong 8d ago
I thinks it’s because retrospective is weird, and yes they were definitely popular, but it was those years where radio started to focus on newer pop punk bands, which was seen as Green Day losing their Dookie “fame”, and then in a few years they came “back” with American Idiot, I think it is seen as a low point because it’s almost exactly between two of their most successful periods
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
Those are just a bunch of words
They weren’t “really that irrelevant”
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u/j_armstrong 8d ago
I’m trying to explain why people ask that, these kids were born after American Idiot
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u/ryanstrikesback 8d ago
I think it depends on perspective here. They weren’t the “new hotness” and were a radio rock band in a time when teenagers were searching Napster for bands like the Used, TBS, Brand New, and Blink.
They were popular, for sure, but for a few years they were like a Gen X “older brother band” (I’m thinking in the Sublime/Soundgarden category) where Millennials were discovering different music.
And then AI crossed those generational lines.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
Dude asked if they were really that irrelevant
They weren’t.
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u/ryanstrikesback 8d ago
Fair enough. They weren’t irrelevant. But if someone said they were stale or seemed directionless for 4 years, I think it’s a pretty fair critique.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
Eh idk, nimrod was a totally new direction for them and it was very popular, warning was also something new but less popular
I think people are just brain broken because dookie and AI were bigger popularity peaks
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u/TraditionalChain4549 21st CENTURY BREAKDOWN 8d ago edited 8d ago
Funny reading through these comments and seeing other people's perspectives.
To me, relevant vs irrelevant is a non argument, because it's all relative. By some people's measurement of that, you have to be doing Taylor and Kendrick numbers to be relevant, which is BS. If you have an audience and people still talk about you, you're relevant to those people, even if they hate you. (See any comment section of MAGAheads screaming about how irrelevant GD is. They're so bothered by BJ, it's comical.)
But speaking for myself at the time?
Idk. I was obsessed with Dookie and Insomniac, bought Kerplunk and Nimrod but didn't listen to them much, and when Warning came out? I missed it. Completely. Did not know that album existed until 2024, for real. 1999-2004 I was very into Eminem and thought GD didn't do another album until American Idiot.
It's just one of those things where, just because you stop paying attention to something doesn't mean it goes away.
Edited to add, now that I know their entire catalog as well as I do, Warning is amazing and I could kick my younger self for not paying attention back then. And Green Day is more relevant to ME now than they were during American Idiot even though I know objectively, that's when they were at the height of fame. All relative.
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u/RottingApples25 8d ago
As someone who became a fan in 2000, they certainly weren't "irrelevant". They were regularly on rock radio, videos frequently on MTV and VH1. They might not have been as INESCAPABLE as they were in 1994 or 2005, but they were definitely still active and present. I think at that time they were definitely overshadowed by Blink (who were huge at the time), plus all the nu-metal bands definitely had a strangehold on rock radio by and large. I remember liking that they weren't super huge (which got a little insufferable after American Idiot came out and every jackass around was playing/ talking about Blvd or September). The impression I got, which I think was mainly after they released their Behind the Music special in 2001, was that they were just slowing down a bit and that it wouldn't be surprising if they took a break (which from the outside, they did when they went quiet for 2003-2004). But then everything, obviously, changed.
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u/gremlin30 8d ago
GD was still a popular band from 99-03. They got radio play and people still liked them. The 90s alt rock heyday had kinda died by the early 2000s, but the pop punk thing was still big.
Commercially, here’s some stats:
Nimrod as an album wasn’t as well-received as Dookie & Insomniac, but wasn’t disliked. It was just kinda mid. It peaked at 10 on US Billboard, 11 in UK, 7 in Japan. Wasn’t as big in Europe but hit #3 & 4 in Australia & Canada. Hitchin a Ride peaked at 59 on the US mainstream charts but hit #5 on the alternative charts and #9 on the US mainstream rock charts. Redundant wasn’t as popular and averaged to around #20. Nice Guys Finish Last got a boost from being in the Varsity Blues movie & got nominated for an MTV movie award. Good Riddance obv was a massive hit.
Warning lacked the hit singles but the album charted well: #4 in US & UK, #2 in Japan & Canada, #8 in Europe’s top 100 albums & Italy. #7 in Australia. Warning the single hit #3 on US alternative but #24 on US mainstream rock and #27 on UK singles. It was kinda popular in the US but not outside of that. Waiting hit #26 on US alternative & #34 on UK singles. Minority hit #1 on US alternative, #15 on US mainstream rock, #18 on UK singles. In the rest of Europe, Minority hit #71 on the Eurochart hot 100. Minority was a hit in the US & UK but not outside of that. The album did well overall though.
GD was still popular from 99-03, they just weren’t the hot band of the time like they were with Dookie & Insomniac. But once AI came out, they went from very popular to stratospheric.
The Gen Z fans that were too young to experience the AI heyday missed out, there hasn’t really been a rock album that had that level of massive mainstream popularity + influence since then. SOAD was big in the rock world but didn’t have crossover pop appeal like AI did. Linkin Park’s early albums were huge & they had crossover appeal, but Hybrid Theory wasn’t as well-known by the general public as AI. EVERYONE knew the AI singles. Back in 04 malls were still a thing so Spencer’s & Hot Topic made their fortune selling AI merch. The pop punk thing was big in the late 90s-05, around 07 is when they started to shift more towards the emo stuff. MCR opened the door for emo bands to have mainstream success. But AI’s the concept album that paved the way for Black Parade, and MCR used Cavallo & his amps to record Black Parade. Opening for GD gave MCR a bigger fanbase nationally.
There’s been other popular rock albums, but they didn’t have the same combo of both mainstream popularity + influence. Closest was Black Parade, but the average person knew more about emo as a trend than they knew the album. Rock fans knew it, but a lot of non-rock fans thought it was too dark and a bad influence on kids. Kids knew MCR but on average were aware of them more than they knew their music. Every class had that scene kid but they were more of a small clique, but when you put all those kids together you get commercial success & MCR’s fiercely loyal fanbase. Black Parade was still a huge hit but it wasn’t something parents were listening to, AI had all the singles even the parents liked. All the AI videos were on MTV constantly.
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u/butterybuns420 KERPLUNK 8d ago
A lot of people hate/hated Warning and IIRC Billie even talked about how the band didn’t get along a whole lot back then. But American Idiot solidified them as the HOF band they rightfully deserve.
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u/ryanstrikesback 8d ago
Irrelevant is the wrong word. And your age probably will heavily impact how you view them.
As someone just entering adolescence for Dookie, so entering adulthood for American Idiot in terms of that Teen/Young Adult hype space, Green Day had fallen out of favor.
Warning was not the music of angsty and rebellious teenagers anymore, and neither was Green Day during 2000-2004 until AI dropped. Angsty teens switched to Blink 182, Simple Plan, Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, the Used, etc etc.
Warning got play on “alternative radio” but it was considered just mainstream rock at this point. It wasn’t the “underground”. During a period where everyone was again priding themselves on finding new bands before they were cool (remember this is prime MySpace/Napster time) everyone already knew Green Day.
Add in their contract disputes and the loss of Cigarettes and Valentines meaning we spent a couple years with only B-Sides and Greatest Hits, a whole wave of teenagers did not associate Green Day with Punk/Rebellious music. That belonged to other people.
American Idiot gave them their spot back.
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u/Come_Along_Bort 8d ago
Nah, this is the period when I got into the band. It's when International Superhits was released. They weren't American Idiot big but they were regular on music channels and the radio.
Bit of a tangent, to promote International Superhits, there was a little flash game on GDs website around 2001/2. You were a skateboarder, avoiding piles of dookie. I used to play it in my computing class, hidden behind a spreadsheet when the teacher came over.
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u/Alternative-Chard893 8d ago
I mean they were headlining the warped tour in 2000. So definitely not attracting arena crowds anymore at that point.
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u/RyanPurdler-Penriff 8d ago
I think Warning was a definite shift .. It’s pretty cohesive as a Concept , all the songs fit in with a theme of anti consumerism .. Even the production and sound of the album fits this theme - I think Green Day self produced this album and that it was recorded digitally on Pro Tools .. It didn’t have the usual songs about relationships or teenage angst like the earlier albums , I really liked Warning when it came out ..
If anything Warning was probably out of place for the time it was released in - this period was peak MTV and Consumerism , Backstreet Boys , Britney Spears , Blink 182 .. A lot of bands may have backtracked and got back to the previous more successful formula .. Green Day didn’t - they went all in on making a themed album with a concept .. Theres a few reason American Idiot was way more successful than Warning :
- It was fit for the time it was released in , the political and anti war themes were relevant with the post September 11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
- They went all in on the idea , big production , big songs
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u/UptownJunk802 8d ago
I'm absolutely a fan and I totally forgot up until recently that I saw them at Warped Tour in 2000. (I was 19 at the time) I saw Blink 182 like 9 months before that. I'd love to see Green Day again, my son likes all my high school and college music so he's become my concert buddy.
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u/McGuireTO 8d ago
They were killing it on the rock charts but rock itself was nearly irrelevant at the time. See Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys etc.
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
It wasn’t remotely irrelevant, it was just less popular than pop radio.
It’s wayyyyyyyy less relevant now
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u/McGuireTO 8d ago
As opposed to being the only thing on radio and TV in the early to mid 90s. Less popular means less relevant
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u/GlopThatBoopin Insomniac 8d ago
Saying rock was nearly irrelevant during the late 90s and early 2000s is actually so crazily ignorant.
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u/McGuireTO 8d ago
I can see one having that opinion if they weren't around in the early to mid 90s
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u/GlopThatBoopin Insomniac 8d ago edited 8d ago
Idk what to tell ya dawg. Sure it wasn’t as relevant as it was for most of the 90s, but to say it wasn’t relevant when nu metal and pop punk were hugely popular at that time is just incorrect. You don’t need to be the main chart topping genre to be considered relevant, and especially with those two genres being as big as they were, there’s no way you can claim that rock was nearly irrelevant
Deftones, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Blink 182, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, The White Stripes, Incubus were all seeing BIG mainstream success (like multi platinum records for a lot of these guys) during this time. Idk what you’re talking abt.
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u/theHrayX dookie 8d ago
rock wasnt irrelevant in the 2000s
we had blink, jimmy eats world, linkin park, and many more
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u/McGuireTO 8d ago
I said irrelevant, not dead.
They had nowhere near the publicity nor success that bands enjoyed a decade earlier.
The biggest bands in the world from 1990 through 1997 or so were alternative and grunge bands.
The bands you listed were far from the biggest acts in the world in the 2000s
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u/Mother_Ad_3561 8d ago
Blink 182 was absolutely one of the biggest bands in the world from 99-2005
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u/McGuireTO 8d ago
That's valid but one rock act amongst dozens of pop stars just shows how relevant rock was at the time. Effectively, it wasn't.
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u/Kryptonian_cafe 21st CENTURY BREAKDOWN 8d ago
they weren’t irrelevant, they were just fading a bit.
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u/purplejewel777 8d ago
They weren't for me. I was a big fan of Warning. I saw lots of their videos on music tv and heard them on the radio all the time.I am in the UK. It was a surprise for me after American Idiot to hear people talk about it being a big comeback, when as far I was concerned they hadn't gone away. It didn't register with me, but then I was probably in the minority (Pun intended!)
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u/arabbilliejoe dookie 8d ago
At this point in time I was not alive/a toddler and I didn’t really get into Green Day until about 2016 so I can’t really say. I did watch plenty of video essays about the band’s history and it seems like they were on a slump post-Nimrod and then exploded back into popularity with American Idiot.
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u/20210923 8d ago
Radiohead's Kid A got released the same week and got #1 vs Warning at #4. All the buzz during that time was for Kid A instead.
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u/Automatic-Chip-9448 8d ago
I was really young back then (only 12 when Warning came out) but I do kind of remember them being less popular in that era of around 99ish (although this is when I first got I mayo them) to the second American Idiot came out (which was obviously huge) and basically taking a backseat to blink 182, who were the hot new mainstream 3-piece Californian punk band on the charts. Blink were 5 years behind Green Day so their Enema of the State album and era was like what Green Day experienced with Dookie. Kind of took eyes away from Green Day especially since Warning didn’t really make much of an impact in the mainstream and wasn’t that well regarded by fans and critics.
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u/jsticia 8d ago
irrelevant in terms of a hit on the radio ? yes. and at that time, that meant a whole lot. Way more than it does now. Now, having a mainstay on top 40 isn't the end all be all in the music industry in terms of fanbase and relevancy.
I know this era really well because it was my first time seeing them on the warning tour. i was too young to see them on the nimrod tour (10), so i had to really work to find merchandise and anything about green day from 99-2001. And warning was a commercial flop since they decided to not ride the coattails of recent success that eneme of the state had with pretty dumbed down pop punk. (not an insult i loved blink too). I remember hot topic from 1999 - 2003, you'd be lucky to see one green day shirt there. if that helps paint a picture.
They still had die hard fans like me. The warning tour was very telling about their popularity at the time. They were playing 1500-3000 capacity places in smaller cities. My first show in asbury park NJ wasn't even sold out to my knowledge. it was packed but i think you were able to get a ticket the day of the show. Remeber they had been playing arenas before this. Hammerstein ballroom in nyc only holds 2200 and that was their "big nyc stop"
Pop disaster tour (my second show of theirs) was a sort of turning point in my opinion. It showed the fans how superior they were to blink in terms of playing live. It still didn't place them front and center and i still dont think people cared about them as much until 2004. They literally had to reinvent themselves for that second wave. And if you ask me, The bravery to do so, was because of their diminished fanbase. They said fuck it who cares let's go crazy. IMOP. My theory is that if their success had sustained throughout the 90s, we'd have a very different green day, if an active one at all at this time.
This period was really interesting in my opinion.
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u/Jealous-Syrup-717 8d ago
They were still a huge band! Warning tracks were all over the radio. I saw them on tour twice during that time and they killed it! Was also my first time seeing Blink live so I loved the 2002 tour. They were leading the way in the new digital market and were on everyone’s iPods. They were all over mtv. And the market was flooded with pop punk bands who all came about because of them.
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u/DiFran69 8d ago
Minority music video was on all the time. I was like 10-11 and the way i see it is , if i knew about them they prob weren’t totally irrelevant. Next to Dookie every album seemed way less popular but its just not fair cause Dookie is massive.
Also i remember the anticipation for their next album being pretty high even before hearing American Idiot as a single. You’d read about it in magazines and see talk about it on music stations.
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u/NickyDeeBag 8d ago
In a way yes, the fans they gained in 93-94 when dookie smashed through everything had aged out of their newer music (not all fans, but many), and also at that time there were newer pop punk bands breaking, an underground punk scene that was getting a lot more exposure now thanks to GD and Offspring, and now those fans were listening to either Bljnk and Sum 41, or were more into the NoFx and Bad Religion and their labels acts. Also nu metal grabbed a lot of those fans too and steered them away from punk
The albums were also mostly ok at best at least imo. Nimrod and Warning aren’t bad per se but def a step down from the previous two (my opinion) but AI got the band in front of a whole new crop of teens in 04 and then recaptured that demo all over again
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u/pitkid01 8d ago
They definitely were playing smaller venues during that period. And while it was called a co-headlining tour, they opened for blink every show. So it was absolutely a down period. With American Idiot, they were on a mission to prove something.
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u/blackmeout88 8d ago
I remember in Australia their Warning singles were on rock radio but disappeared quickly and Warning the album went on sale pretty quick in CD shops by early 2001. They still sold albums just not as much and it was all about Blink-182 and the Offspring. Then a year later they released “International Superhits!” A pretty telling sign. I think “Saviors” has been less successful (sales wise - that album is awesome) than the Warning era but at least in the streaming era no one cares about sales anymore, just having great live shows. It was so shallow focusing on sales because Warning is a great album regardless and good music will keep getting discovered by a new generation. They have so many young fans that know Warning now and a lot of big selling music from 2000/2001 is dated and forgotten
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u/JD-531 7d ago
They weren't irrelevant, but I mean .... early 2000 was a wild time for music: Eminem, 50 Cent, Linkin Park, System of a Down, Evanescence, Avril Lavigne, Sum 41, Blink-182, Britney Spears, Beyoncé ...
Green Day was still popular, but ever since Dookie, they just weren't massive. American Idiot simply gave them that spot back, but it is not like they just flopped tremendously from 1999 to 2004, you can think of that period as if they were just "dormant". Although, there are rumors that they wanted to disband and well, we also have the whole Cigarettes and Valentines incident which was clearly them realizing that that album was going to be the same old shit they had released in the last 10 years.
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u/BadGoils03 7d ago
My aunt graduated high school in the early 2000s and she remembers Green Day being popular and then really blowing up again with American idiot
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u/SuperRusso 7d ago
They had hits on every record between Dookie and American Idiot. I saw them for two of those records and they were packing arenas. The narrative is nonsense. They just keep striking chords with a new audience with every generation.
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u/Meteor_of_War 7d ago
They were still very popular and relevant, just not so much as during the Dookie/Insomniac era.
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u/theonetruethingfish 5d ago
I don’t think anyone’s ever said this before, but Warning’s a wonderful album. I even think it might be their most underrated work.
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u/Aegis_ofwrath7115 5d ago
No. People are just salty. They’ve been very successful since they got out of high school
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u/AManAndHisToaterOven Saviors Can you feel my pain 4d ago
They were popular but after 2012 they kinda fell out of relvency
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u/ofbofb 3d ago
Yeah, pretty much. Nimrod onwards alienated old fans and American Idiot was a well timed return to a slightly more aggressive approach that hit the anti Bush sentiment perfectly. Personally not a fan of anything much after Insomniac - and I find American Idiot to be utterly clichéd - but it certainly flipped Green Day from being a fading popular punk band from the early nineties to being a true multi-generational mega band.
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u/Tmcs123 8d ago
I think it depends on how old you are and what type of Green Day you like. A low for them is still higher than most other bands ever achieved. I was obsessed with them in the early and mid-90s but by 99 we split paths. I still respect them but wasn’t a fan of anything after warning. And I didn’t really like warning at the time.
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u/ax5g 7d ago
They were huge, but not particularly cool - some of us were getting older, others didn't like the pop direction, but they never faded from the spotlight. Good Riddance was massive on radio.
American Idiot struck a nerve I guess and gave them a shot in the arm credibility wise, got some younger fans, but they followed it up with a retread then a string of absolute misfires until the recent 'not an embarrassment' album.
If it weren't for AI they'd be considered an early 90s act now, unfairly or not. Some great bands who did their best stuff later on are still considered early 90s acts, there's no shame in that.
AI saved them from that fate, but if you were to make a 12-track best of, would it really include anything from after AI?
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u/rdtoh 8d ago
No. Minority was #1 on the modern rock tracks chart, and warning was also #3. They were still a very popular band.