WARNING!!! WARNING!!! (Warning - Green Day)

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Product:	Warning - Green Day
Date:	09/05/01 (1 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great listening

Disadvantages: dunno

Warning continues the trend of the band's recent work. The singing is a little slower, the guitar is a little less heavy. Billie Joe also seems less concerned with attitude, coming across as unpretentious and good natured. The songs are not the more nuanced pop Armstrong seems capable of. They're pretty basic but dependably likeable. Warning is a good, straight forward record.

Warning is hardly a major break for Green Day. Most of the songs are like one of their earlier ones. There are some slower rockers, with shuffling drums and a sturdy Mike Dirnt bass line, that resemble Redundant or Long View. The title track is pleasantly unassuming rock.

Church On Sunday is very winning. It's buoyant like Elvis Costello's Peace Love & Understanding. Castaway is fast, light fun. A lot of the songs on Warning sound familiar and aren't much more than throwaways but the music is always energetic with good guitar riffs.

Warning has lots of links to classic pop. Waiting is about being in a good place and ready to make things even better. Its bouncy, upbeat riff is a little like Petula Clark's Downtown. Billie Joe plays a harmonica line on Hold On like the one from the Beatles' Should Have Known Better. On Deadbeat Holiday and Fashion, Billie Joe mocks those concerned with being cool or fashionable. With Billie Joe coming as close to a punk yell as he does on Warning, the kind of dopey Minority sounds a little out of place. But its good natured simplicity and individualism are consistent with the rest of the record.

Warning's most ambitious song is Misery, Billie Joe plays mandolin, Dirnt plays accordion and drummer Tre Cool plays accordion. Mexican sounding horns also show up on a tale of people who face emptiness that "will fill your soul with sorrow" and have fallen into a sad street life of addiction and mortal danger. The CD ends with Macy's Day Parade, the closest Warning comes to a Time Of
Your Life style ballad. Its acoustic guitar and sincere vocals are a little too much. Billie Joe doesn't have a great voice but Macy's Day Parade succeeds for the reason, Time Of Your Life and other Green Day songs have. He sounds real, not like a faker.Warning is consistently enjoyable and it is a lot of fun.

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