After Green Day's shameful ninth studio album Uno! ¡Dos! was always going to
be a tricky one to approach. It's the second album in the trilogy and the
'garage rock' album out of the trilogy. I'd like to mention my distaste for
this genre specific Green Day has taken on. They have approached this in a
different, but embarrassing fashion. The music isn't far from embarrassing
either...
I'm a huge fan of garage rock, so when I read ¡Dos! would have a garage rock
style, I couldn’t help but shudder. It's like having your Dad start listening
to Animal Collective, it just doesn’t happen... But when it does, you don't
know whether to congratulate him for his new found taste, or hate him for
ruining one of your favourite bands (my Dad doesn’t know of AnCo, he's more of
a Lou Reed man.) So what does this all mean? It means that ¡Dos! is just
as dull, repetitive and bland as Uno! It's expected really when
considering the time-frame these songs were written/recorded and produced. This
isn't The Fall, although Green Day are half of John Peel's The Fall
description: "They are always different, they are always the
same."
Whilst we're on the topic of John Peel, I wonder what he thought of Green
Day. I'm pretty sure they never attended a Peel Session. I'm glad artists like
Half Japanese, Galaxie 500, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Mercury Rev have had
the pleasure of appearing on a Peel session and Green Day have not. I'm really
not going anywhere with this, I just want you to know that Green Day's ¡Dos! is
incredibly dull. It's like I have to purposely listen to older Green Day to get
away from listening to these awful tracks.
See You Tonight opens the album. Imagine giving Simon &
Garfunkel an amplifier with all the vocal effects at their disposal, you better
believe it. Fuck Time is the worst track I’ve heard all year, you heard it here
first. The most obnoxious track of the year comes from Green Day and not Katy
Perry. I feel as if Green Day has become the butt of all my jokes these days.
It's just really hard to ignore the lack of quality when listening to
Green Day. First of all, where the fuck is the garage rock? Second, what the
fuck is this bland rock music? And finally... Thirdly, Why has this album been
exposed to me?
Stop When The Red Lights Flash salvages the album from getting a record low
score for Music Review Database. This track isn't garage rock like it may
sound, it's more punk. Actually, it's the most punk Green Day have been in
several years. The riffs are good enough, the effects aren’t as in your face
and repetitious as usual and Armstrong actually delivers a decent vocal for
once. it's a shame the rest of the album couldn’t have been more like this.
¡Dos! is filled with, filler. These tracks don't take off at all. There's no
passion, no energy and certainly no quality in tracks like Wild One and
Nightlife. Don't even get me started on the Amy Winehouse tribute, Amy. Now
that, that's hell right there. Stray Heart has a very familiar bass riff, just
like most of Green Day's songs. I'm not a fan of repetition unless it's done
purposely and well. Green Day are the pinnacle of repetitious rock music.
Ashley is over before it even begins and Baby Eyes is an example of a band
scraping for inspiration. It's actually hard to find the inspiration for most
of these tracks (and albums...) Green Day have excelled in my eyes in being one
of the best punk rock single bands that have managed to release one or two
decent singles per album which fans can latch themselves on to. ¡Dos! doesn’t
have that track, nor did Uno! but it at least had... I'm lost for words.
~Eddie
1.5
