1. THE QUEERS 2. SCREECHING WEASEL 3. THE LILLINGTONS 4. THE RIVERDALES 5. HUNTINGTONS 6. TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET 7. THE HEXTALLS 8. THE COPYRIGHTS 9. JOHNIE 3 10. THE ERGS
I was tempted to like your comment, Puddington, but GD ain't all that bad - it's just there a number of bands so much better at this sort of stuff. They wanted to be Screeching Weasel (Mike Dirnt even played in SW for a while), but they lacked the songwriting skills of Ben Foster (lead of SW and The Riverdales) and his mate Joe King of The Queers, who are massively more talented than BJ Armstrong, but never got the commercial success they deserved.
I like GD, not enough of a fan to argue if they are better than the other bands listed though, (Besides, I always avoid "Better" when discussing Music, as it is an extremely subjective topic) I would only endorse Pud's comment - to a point- that they are not a Punk Band, they are no more Punk than The Police. Certainly when they started out as kids they were Punks, but like The Clash and The Sex Pistols, they shed that like a second skin when money took over and the Lawyers and marketing men stepped in.
Yeah, definitely, but I was excluding the Ramones, The Undertones, Buzzcocks, SLF etc as they are from a different era. They are obviously better anyway. I was mainly looking to highlight the contempories of Green Day, who didn't get their commercial success, despite being a lot better IMHO.
That's because Green Day are "Commercial", most of the bands you mentioned are not commercial because they are pure Punk.
They are "punk" in that they play fast, buzzsaw guitars in the style of the Ramones, but definitely "pop" too as the melodies are often pure '60s girl groups, bubblegum or Beach Boys. I think the commercial success or otherwise is down to image, attitude, self-promotion and the luck of getting signed by and marketed by a big record label, rather than the sound.
I'll have to take your word for it I'm not dissing those bands, all I'm saying is Green Day are commercial band in every sense of the word.
