“Sounds like it was recorded yesterday”: The one band Billie Joe Armstrong considered timeless
No artist really has control over whether their music will stand the test of time or not. There are only so many chances that someone has to capture the spirit of the times, but if they’re not careful, their songs can go from talking about universal truths to sounding incredibly dated within the span of a few months. Although Billie Joe Armstrong always set out to write songs that weren’t tied to a time and place in Green Day, he knew that one of the most timeless artists of his generation actually came out a few years before Dookie dropped.
Once the 1990s started, there was one thing for certain about the future of rock: It sure as hell wasn’t going to be hair metal. That was firmly reserved for the 1980s, and when Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction came out, it felt like the last great artistic gasp that Los Angeles would see for a while once new interesting acts like Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers started making waves.
People were already flocking to artists with a little more of an edge, but no one was really prepared for the next generation of rock stars to come from the Northwest. That region of the US was reserved for the more obscure indie bands, but once Kurt Cobain hit the nail on the head with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Nirvana became one of the biggest names in rock overnight.
Because, really, what’s not to like about Nirvana’s music? Sure, some songs don’t quite resonate with everyone, but the lion’s share of their material had the same fire as punk rock with the tunefulness of The Beatles, which wasn’t that far off from what Armstrong was doing when putting together Green Day.
That’s not to say that each band is tied together by any stretch. Even when Green Day debuted on a major label in 1994, Cobain’s death had already left a gaping hole in the music scene, and even if ‘Basket Case’ and ‘Longview’ still relied on loud guitars, it stood out in a much different way than something like ‘Heart Shaped Box’ did one year prior.
Still, Armstrong couldn’t deny that what Nirvana did was bound to outlive every band member, saying, “The good stuff is timeless. You could put on a Nirvana record, and it sounds like it was recorded yesterday the same way that you could put on Abbey Road by The Beatles. With a lot of the twisted pop culture, a lot of young people are able to have a grab bag of different ideas, and it always churns out something new.”
And out of all the acts to come out of Seattle, Nirvana might have the most timeless discography. Regardless of how great Soundgarden or Pearl Jam were in their day, Ten and Badmotorfinger still have production values that reek of 1991, whereas Nevermind sounds like a band cutting loose in their garage and letting it rip for no one else but themselves.
Then again, that’s what punk rock was all about. Going through the entire Seattle scene, Cobain was always the resident punk amid a sea of hard rock and borderline metal bands, and while it stood out in a completely different way than what Green Day was doing, Armstrong could at least recognise when he was seeing something that timeless spreading across the airwaves.
