The 1980 punk album Billie Joe Armstrong called “a pile of shit”
While a lot of people consider punk to be one of the most highly scrutinised genres of music, given how people will often complain if it isn’t authentic enough, at its core, it is still predominantly judged by the same metrics as any other style.
If we’re being completely honest with ourselves, then whether something should be deemed good or not is down to how good the songwriting and performance are, rather than by any other yardstick. There’s no point in judging a piece of music by how well it fits into a predetermined genre, and if a band or artist was to release something that doesn’t necessarily feel like it belongs in the same sphere that they purport to be a part of, that doesn’t mean it isn’t well constructed.
The greatest artists who are beloved by all are, regardless of genre, great songwriters, and that should always dictate how people perceive your work. If it seems as though they’ve abandoned everything they ever stood for in your eyes, that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped writing good songs, it might just mean that you’re no longer the target audience for their work.
So, regardless of whether you think of their latest offerings as being a pale imitation of punk or not, ask yourself another question: is what Green Day do actually any good anymore?
You may ask yourself whether they were ever punk in the first place, but that’s irrelevant, because Billie Joe Armstrong certainly wrote some exceptional songs in the past, and was deservedly given the plaudits for this, regardless of how strong his punk credentials were. However, in 1994, in an interview with Ray Gun Magazine, he had some interesting comments to make about credibility and being judged on good songwriting.
“To be big and to be ‘important’, it’s really not up to the musician to decide,” the frontman and guitarist argued. “It just really comes down to good songs,” which is, of course, a perfectly accurate statement, and one that aligns with the perspective offered at the start of the article, but he didn’t stop there with his assessment.
Armstrong went on to talk about the difference between good and bad music, and after being critical of one of the most beloved artists of all time, he named a classic by The Clash as the record that he believed to be the worst punk album of all time.
“No matter which way you package it,” he continued. “Half of the David Bowie stuff is great. Half of it is complete shit. As far as I’m concerned. Same with a lot of bands. Look at Sandinista!. It’s a pile of shit. I just want to write good songs.”
Sandinista! may well be a polarising record that was incredibly bloated, but there are a number of songs on it that still showcase the brilliance of Joe Strummer’s songwriting. With Green Day and Armstrong, this is nowhere to be found on anything they’ve released in the 2020s, and you have to wonder whether he ever took his own words of wisdom seriously, or whether he was ever really paying attention to the songwriting, not whether it actually clicked with him.
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