Green Day - Insomniac

I almost never hear anyone talk about this record, but it is absolutely my favorite Green Day record. 

Wait!  You’re saying this is the best Green Day record?  Really?

No.  Maybe.  I don’t know.  Best?  Might have to give that to American Idiot because it is that good and it catapulted them to a level of stardom we never dreamed was possible for punks.

But Insomniac is absolutely my favorite Green Day record.

I remember getting off the bus after school, grabbing my dad’s 1970’s ten speed bike and riding to the local Musicland at the Fair Oaks Mall to buy it the day that it came out.  It was the fall of my sophomore year and I wasn’t yet driving.  While Google Maps says it is only 2.1 miles, it definitely felt a lot farther at the age of fifteen.  On the way home, I popped it into my Discman and it just blew my doors off. 

I loved Dookie, but it didn’t personally resonate with me the way Insomniac did.  It’s an album about struggling with your identity.  Pop punk was the genre of songs about girls.  Sure, “Coming Clean” was about Billie Joe accepting his bisexuality, but I’m not bisexual, and it was pretty clear what he was talking about there.  But from the opening of “Armatage Shanks” with Tre’s booming drums to Billie Joe singing, “elected, the rejected, I perfect the science of the idiot”, I knew I loved this record.

The music was darker than any pop punk I’d heard, fast, but melodic and still showcasing all three’s genius level talents at their instruments and songwriting.  “86” is a great example of both pushing the boundaries of their genre and also being honest about real life pain.  924 Gilman Street, the co-op club that had spawned Operation Ivy, Rancid, Green Day and later AFI and Tiger Army, amongst many others, had a well-known “No Major Labels” rule and when Billie Joe returned to his old stomping grounds, to see old friends, he was promptly told to leave.  Billie Joe hadn’t changed, only become more successful.  Their music had not sold out, it just got more popular.  As with any subculture, even those people who claim to be inclusive, there are still gatekeepers who protect it’s exclusivity. 

The first record (I believe) where they started dropping to an Eb tuning, the power of the I-iii-IV chord progression used to convey a sense of uncertainty really pushes this track and gives it some urgency.  I-iii-IV is not unusual in pop punk, but it’s the first time I’d heard a band drop down to the iii and IV rather than go up to them.  The Billie Joe perfectly sings, “There’s no return from eighty-six, don’t even try”.  It was very clear to him he’d moved into a new phase in his life and he couldn’t have a foot in both worlds.  He had grown, they had not, it was a platonic divorce (years later, he was able to return but not with Green Day). 

Lyrics filled with anxiety about a life changed completely even though who he was on the inside hadn’t changed.  It was the outside that had changed around him.  They didn’t abandon their friends, (some) of their friends abandoned them.  He wasn’t sure how to feel about it all.  Green Day always had bigger aspirations than playing Gilman Street, Fireside Bowl and CBGBs.  They had the talent and work ethic to make it happen, but the East Bay punk scene was instrumental in making them both the band they were, but also the men they became.  Larry Livermore tells a story in his book about, after signing with Warner Brothers, they walked into his bedroom/office with a bunch of lawyers from the label and signed his half page contract he’d written to protect his work on 39 Smooth and Kerplunk! and the EPs.  They’d only ever shook hands and Billie Joe, Mike and Tre kept their word as did Larry.  The scene turned their back on Green Day, but Green Day never turned their back on the scene.

This record is timeless.  There are various episodes we go through in life where things change around us and we struggle to pivot.  Sometimes we wake up and realize we’re “walking contradictions”.  We did what we intended to do, but it betrayed our values. 

When I was in high school, I loved the first two records as much as I loved Dookie, but as I’ve aged, Insomniac, Nimrod and Warning have risen to the top of the list when I want to listen to Green Day.  They grew up, they started families, they started having accountants and real-life stress and it came out in their songs.  Then they looked at the world, especially our country and saw how an entire segment wasn’t even questioning the narrative and they wrote American Idiot.  Quite frankly, I’ve barely listened to anything since.  Post-modernism ruins art and it seems to have infected Green Day the best I can tell, but again, I’ve only given things one listen at best and it just didn’t give me the same sense of passion or connectedness that their earlier work did.  I’m older and more jaded as well.  Rich, middle-aged people don’t have much to offer me emotionally.

Insomniac still sounds incredible.  Dookie sounds a little dated to me, but I think that’s more about the subject matter and my age than it is about Rob Cavallo’s production.  Insomniac is aging gracefully and I’d still stack it up against any pop punk record coming out today. 

JC