Insomniac - Green Day

'Insomniac' is without doubt my favourite of all the Green Day albums. It contains so many of my favourite tracks of theirs and is I feel an all round excellent album from them. It's exceptional in every sense and never do the band fail to impress throughout the entirety of this release. With 'Dookie' the band had exploded onto the scene the previous year, however with 'Insomniac' the band showcase a far darker and heavier side of theirs. The album was released in 1995 and as of August 2006 has sold in excess of 2 million copies in America and is therefore certified double platinum. This is I feel the most powerful of all the albums that the band have ever ...  Read the complete review

(excuse the re-use of the opening paragraph from a previous review) As expressed in my review of Warning that I wrote previously, Green Day are a band that have helped me through hard times, and I say that with the true conviction that so many others lack when they make comments like that. When your life gets to a point when you simply don’t want it any more, you turn to someone or something, whether it be a loved one, a pint in the pub or whatever else, but for me it’s my music that helps me. Green Day in particular, along with Nirvana, were the two bands that made me see that I was being petty and needed to think about myself in a whole new light, and for ...  Read the complete review

After an exhausting year of promoting Dookie, the band quickly released a new album that was much darker than any previous release. Obviously reflecting on how tired the band was Insomniac was almost the bands last album, or so many people believe. When the band cancelled a European tour midway through and with quotes like "I don't know if I wanna be involved in the rock world anymore" from Billie Joe, it was thought that Green Day's quick rise to fame was tearing the band apart. It turned out that all the band needed was a long break, afterall, they had been touring for years without a considerable break and had released 4 albums in 6 years. In my mind ...  Read the complete review

This is Green Day's finest hour. 'Kerplunk' was good but there was something lacking, 'Dookie' was a big commercial success and had some of their most memorable songs on it but 'Insomniac' rips away the pop facade and gets down to the raw punk-powered noise that was always threatening to explode from Green Day but never did. It's just such a shame that they returned to the jaunty, Blink-182-inspiring, pop stylings in further albums 'Nimrod' and 'Warning'. This is how Green Day sound, or should do. The first two tracks kick off at a blisteringly rapid pace, leaving the listener unaware of what to expect next. What ...  Read the complete review

Blink-182 suck. Ha. Actually, shut up: they don't, not by a long way. There's loads more than just three guys from San Diego, California to the third wave of punk that's currently embracing popular culture - and that is, basically, lots more guys from California. In particular though, it's the subgenre dubbed 'Skate-Punk' - or 'Pop-Punk' by others - that has grabbed the most attention from mainstream, crossover fans. There are, of course, lots of Punk bands that aren't quite in the public eye as some, and so usually, a deeper, harder tone is retained within their sound: Lagwagon, another Californian outfit, being a good example of ...  Read the complete review