Brian reviews Green Day.

This week I asked Brian to review Green Day. Green Day takes me back to my days working at the chicken place and hanging out with my Andy and his green hair (no, it wasn't moldy) prior to us dating.

I picked Basket Case because I used to sing it to Andy all the time when he would start complaining that he was tired of breading gizzards. It worked because then he would start doing that little weird mosh dance and air guitar his ass back to make more chicken.

Speaking of Andy, guess who was in another accident that involved his bumper AGAIN. I swear that man must have a magnet on his butt! Don't worry, he's fine.

And now Brian's review:

Green Day are apparently a punk band. I don't know much about punk, but when I was young, or rather even younger, I had this idea of The Sex Pistols, who were mean, and offensive, who were out to shock people. I also had the feeling that no-one actually thought they were any good, or clever - the younger generation just pretended to like them to annoy their parents.

Nowadays this generation are parents, and even grandparents, and they still pretend to like the Sex Pistols to show how hip they were then, and how cultured their generation were. It's all rather sad really.

The original punk rockers screamed, pissed people off, got attacked in the street by angry mobs for their rendition of "God Save the Queen", and they had colourful names like Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. Not like Billie Joe Armstrong. He sounds like a character out of the Waltons. Johnny Rotten got his name from the state of his teeth. Billie Joe is far too fresh-faced. I was amazed to read that he's been making records since 1987, since he looks too young to have been alive then.

As far as being offensive goes, Billie Joe and his band do try a little bit. They certainly choose some dark subjects to sing about, such as zombies, and Basket Case is set in an institution that is exactly like I imagine Bee's workplace to be - bright colours and clinical cleanliness, but inhabited by nutters (and Bee, of course).

Billie Joe appears to have one thing in common with the likes of Johnny Rotten - he can't sing. Or rather, he pretends he can't. I suspect he could if he wanted to. But then, it wouldn't be punk. In fact, change the words appropriately, and you could use this stuff as theme music for children's TV programmes. This is something Green Day should bear in mind in case the bottom ever falls out of the "punk" market.

As far as the music itself goes, it makes fine background music. I find it very difficult to have something playing whilst I'm concentrating on doing anything. That's why I don't listen to a lot of music, because I like to give it my full attention. With Green Day in the background you could extract square roots in your head whilst operating dangerous industrial machinery, and not have to worry about losing so much as a fingertip.

And why not listen to it? After all, it's slightly better than sitting in silence, and it's almost totally inoffensive. Which isn't what I imagined punk would be like. Maybe I'll actually get around to listening to the Sex Pistols one day, so I've something to compare this with, but in the words of Douglas Adams, I'd sum up Green Day as "Mostly Harmless".

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Brian, I wish we had bright colors at Arkham Asylum but unfortunately it's all about shades of gray. Pewter and Silver to be specific. ;o)