Thanks a lot Green Day (sarcastic cough). With Warning, the early '90s punk trio completes their shift from fun-loving teen-angsters to mature pop stars. It is commercialism at its finest.
Green Day
Warning
Reprise Records
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Ah, how fans long for the days of Dookie and Insomniac. When their music was upbeat and powerful. When their most popular song topic was masturbation. Now it seems Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool are all grown up.
Warning sounds just like another Nimrod, the band's previous and mostly pop album. Green Day used to be considered innovators by bridging the gap between punk and alternative. But those days are long gone. Now they have traded in their heavy and distorted guitars for acoustics and slower tempos. Green Day seems to have put little thought or effort into Warning. The teen-angst themes that they paraded in their first albums seem to be lost amidst the slow and unenergetic music.
Billie Joe, a once emotional and ecstatic lead singer whose distinctive voice helped carry the band to the forefront of early '90s alternative, now just sounds bland and repetitive. The band's first single, "Minority," is a perfect example of how the once green-haired singer has grown out of his punk roots. There's no depth to his voice anymore, just a monotone, let's-finish-this-album-and-get-out-of-here kind of attitude.
It seems Green Day is riding on the success of Nimrod, much as they rode off Dookie for the 1995 release Insomniac. Both Insomniac and Warning are virtual copies of their predecessor, providing little in terms of originality and quality. But Warning seems even worse. Green Day seems to have abandoned its core fans in favor of the much more profitable pop market.
But in a business where selling out is encouraged, lest the band simply slip into obscurity, what options was Green Day left with? They found a formula with Nimrod and ran with it, but they shouldn't be surprised if long-time fans simply give up with the lack luster Warning.
