Father of All Motherfuckers, Green Day, 2020, :26
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
I’ve been a huge, huge fan of Green Day since they appeared on MTV, jumping up and down and tearing up their couch like total morons in the "Longview" video. I went out and bought that album, and everything since, and the stuff that came before, and loved practically everything. A brilliant band, absolutely brilliant, playing what they want, saying what they want, and parlaying an obsessive drive to entertain into massive success. But… I just wasn't enthralled by the singles from this album that I heard when they came out. And indeed, they're representative of the whole. It's a little glossy, a little too poppy, for my taste. Slick, pop-perfect production but not much in the way of muscle or snarl. Lots of "yeah whoa"s and "oh oh oh-oh"s and "la la"s in the choruses. "Meet Me on the Roof" sounds like if someone told Prince about pop-punk and he tried to make a song in that genre without hearing any examples. This is Green Day lite, watered down. I'm not angry, Billie Joe, just disappointed. Favorite track: the Beatles-inspired “Stab You in the Heart."
