Green Day – Insomniac
today we’re checking out Green Day’s release from 1995, a year after their breakout hit Dookie, Insomniac:
Armitage Shanks is a p good opener – gotta love a good “yeah im not really doing good” track to open an album. well yknow Brat’s a real straightforward track, not a lotta subtlety here. p good jam. Stuck With Me has some bright spots but im overall p middling on it. Geek Stink Breath is similar – got some neat moments and i think the overall fuller sound of the track is interesting. No Pride’s an interesting track about feeling separated from where they got their start. i like Bab’s Uvula Who? quite a bit. the “get myself all wound up” is a neat little backbone for the track, plus that’s p relatable ngl. 86 touches a bit more on what No Pride did – the lyrics get a lil repetitive on this one ngl. Panic Song is enjoyable but not super noteworthy to me. Stuart and the Avenue is a nice angsty song. good one. Brain Stew was the only track off here that i recognized – completely forgot it was Green Day because of the chunkier sound to it. definitely feels unique on this album. Jaded transitions the feel smoothly right back into what the sound the rest of the record had. apparently the single was just Brain Stew/Jaded, which makes sense – the songs could’ve easily been stitch together and i would’ve had no complaints (though it couldn’t have been a single then, haha). Westbound Sign’s aight. a little more hopeful than the rest of the album, but not by a ton. Tight Wad Hill’s p fun. probably my favorite of the tracks that aren’t about Armstrong’s introspection. oh shoot i def recognized Walking Contradiction too – this one feels like a nice conclusion to what’s been developing in the record and a nice capstone.
faves – Armitage Shanks, Bab’s Uvula Who?, Brain Stew, Walking Contradiction
dislikes –
yeah i got no major complaints about this record. the songs here lean more towards a unified style, which is nice, but also means not a ton of them are breaking new ground or branching out into a lot of new space.
def gotta say its always interesting to see an album after a band “hits it big”, and this one’s esp bittersweet with what happened to them and their old scene in San Fransisco.
Insomniac – 6/10
next time we’ll be checking out their 1997 release, Nimrod.
Discussion ¬