Green Daywere not a band poised to take over the mainstream.
(Just look at the cover of Vince Staples’FM!.)
They kicked around a couple of releases on seminal East Bay label Lookout!
Credit: Dick Loek/Toronto Star via Getty Images
(Also relevant:It’s Serena Williams' favorite album.)
The grunge explosion resulted in hairy, largely self-serious men blasting out anthems of disenfranchisement.
“We get lumped into this bandwagon of this f-d-up mentality,“he noted toRolling Stonein 1995.
REPRISE
(Also, uh, multiple cuts from Phil Collins’Tarzansoundtrack.)
“There’s something about mediocrity that I don’t want anything to do with.”
Another major player in this narrative isThe Offspring’sSmash.
87 on the Top 200.
Major labels quickly took notice, which leads us to 1995.
Rancid’s…And Out Come the Wolvescame out in 1995, as did Jawbreaker’s major-label debutDear You.
All of which leads us to Blink-182.
So that’s basically three years fromDookieto the next biggest fad in alternative music.
For a record that rockets past in 40 minutes,Dookiehas had a long shelf life.
And for a group of snotty East Bay potheads, Green Day casts a long shadow.
