The Top Ten Songs by Green Day

Sometimes, a band surprises me and sneaks its way into my favorites. Green Day is one of those bands and this is my list of their top ten songs.

It’s not that I don’t like punk, it’s just that “Dookie” was just sort of there. I liked some of the stuff from their early albums, “Brainstew” and “Longview” come to mind, but it wasn’t until they released “American Idiot” that I could even name ten Green Day songs, much less make a top ten list.

Now, “American Idiot” is one of my favorite albums and while I love the title track, it’s actually the way-too-long-for-radio-airplay “Jesus of Suburbia” that is my favorite Green Day track and in my opinion their best song.
The joy of the “American Idiot” album is that it is a concept album, something that has long been ignored by most mainstream music producers. Once upon a time, when I was young, concept albums were popular, but in recent years, it has seemed as though the record companies are more interested in putting together a collection of singles for radio play than in an album that’s together because it belongs together.

This album actually has songs that are meant to be listened to together. And, the band got huge points when they announced that they would like to have a writer submit a screenplay based on the theme of the album. Yea for artists supporting artists!

“Jesus of Suburbia” is not a particularly happy song, but the sentiment is wonderful. The idea that we can be part of a society and not be identical to everyone else in it is encouraging and happy. My biggest disappointment with this song was its length. Not that I think it is too long, but that my local disc jockeys do. One confided that you would only hear the song on her station when the DJ needed to go outside to smoke.