What is the first punk rock album to sell 10 million copies?
It’s no secret that the 1990s were made for grunge music; economic recession and youth disillusionment led directly to the mainstream’s love affair with scuzz, fuzz, and raw DIY pursuits, which raises the query of how punk rock entered the fold.
Green Day released their debut album, 39/Smooth, in 1990, fighting an uphill battle. Dave Grohl permanently joined the hot-ticket Nirvana lineup, and unreleased Nevermind material soon made its way into the world, when it seemed that grunge was on the up, and, as a consequence, there was no place for Green Day’s happy-go-lucky punk rock.
In its first year, 39/Smooth sold around 3,000 copies, but the band came back swinging with a second album two years later, Kerplunk!, which blew their previous sales out of the water; the project originally debuted with 10,000 copies on its first day, becoming the crown jewel of Lookout! Records.
It was a year when anything seemed possible: Nirvana’s Nevermind displaced Michael Jackson’s Dangerous to take the top spot. Surely, as the sticky sonic discomfort of grunge and scuzz overtook the easy listening of shimmery synth-pop, audiences would soon open their arms to alternative music in general, and so, through the shrubbery, a path for the California band formed.
Subsequently, another two-year gap would lead Green Day to their crowning achievement, which saw them move over to Reprise Records for their first collaboration with Rob Cavallo and release 1994’s Dookie, making melody mainstream again. Though it only peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200, the album sold over ten million copies in the US and is certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America, while in the UK, it’s certified platinum.
Last year, when presenting the esteemed trio with their Hollywood Walk of Fame star, US TV presenter, DJ, and music exec Matt Pinfield made his first public appearance since suffering a stroke to discuss the lasting impact Dookie had on a generation, sharing that the project “made so many young people pick up guitars, bass, and drums and want to sing and write songs”. Pinfield couldn’t be more right, as some of the biggest names that directly benefited from Dookie‘s ability to push punk rock into the mainstream literally grew up on the album.
Blink-182 frequently pointed to the 15-song album as the key that swung the door open onto an endless labyrinth of pop-punk sounds, as the poster child of the 2010s Kerrang! era had all experienced great spiritual stimulation from the record: Fall Out Boy cited the huge pop hooks as a direct byline to their early, formative years, while Paramore took the angst and fleshed it out into their own rocky landscape on their 2005 debut, All We Know Is Falling.
Written almost entirely by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who heralded fan-favourite tracks like ‘Longview’, ‘Basket Case’ and ‘When I Come Around’, the album boasted a delicious kind of complexity, as Armstrong created it while “having a lot of uncertainty about our future but not giving a shit. Wanting and dreading to be a rock star…if that’s even possible.”
Like it or not, Dookie was Green Day’s ticket to the big leagues, and, if my stamp of approval means anything to the now-54-year-old, he’s doing a pretty good job at this whole rockstar thing.
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