I stopped listening to Green Day around the time of the Nimrod album, I think that was the album that had that awful "Good Riddance" song. That's when those guys lost me. I haven't listened to a single album of theirs since then, but I heard that "21 Guns" song on the radio a few times when it first came out and absolutely hated it. I didn't even learn until weeks/months later that it was actually Green Day, and not one of these new bands-of-the-week. God damn, I thought, what the hell happened to those guys. Now I hear they are even producing a musical, what the fuck? I was an avid Green Day fan in the early 90s from their first album right through Dookie and Insomniac. Kerplunk! and Dookie are era-defining essential albums, and 1039/Slappy (the first record) and Insomniac are high on the list of the 90's best. Green Day kicked ass in those days because they virtually single-handedly revived punk rock. Somewhere along the way they lost their edginess, their livelihood. I'm all about artists growing, expanding and maturing but those guys did a complete 180. They're just playing to a completely different audience now, they're the antithesis of the 1990-96 version of themselves.
I'm saying that to say this: the Dare if You Dare clip does sound uncomfortably similar to 21 Guns, but I'll wait to hear the entire song to pass judgement. The rest of the clips sound absolutely stellar; this album has the potential to be the next Purple.
