Customer Reviews

Dookie

5 star:		(437)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(43)

 

 

I remember the day I bought this album. I was thirteen years of age, and the year was 1994. It was the fifth CD I've "ever" bought, and it totally spun my musical tastes into high gear, driving me to discover a world that I had never been exposed to. Along with Offspring "Smash," this was the first album I've ever bought that I felt I could identify with on a personal level. This album was the cure for boredom in the lifeless suburb I grew up in. My buddies and I would just sit around listening to this album for hours on end; everybody had it, no wonder it sold over 14 million copies.

"Dookie" was a case of accidental success, much like Nirvana's "Nevermind". The latter could be thanked for Green Day's success in many ways. Green Day hit at the right time, with the right sound. Reviving punk rock isn't the easiest task, but Green Day made it seem like child's play. At their core, the California based punk rock trio were masters at reviving the fast and catchy three-chord punk tunes that everyone's grown to love. Even though Green Day would never out sell "Dookie," their influence has reached the masses. These guys opened the door for a revival of punk metal, third wave ska and pop-punk. I'd venture to say that Green Day is the most influential band to come along in the mid nineties, second only to Nirvana.

It's a good thing pop music was better back then, than it is now; because it makes my stomach turn to hear good music mixed up with garbage. But Green Day was in good company back in 1994 (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Beastie Boys, The Offspring, etc.). Undoubtedly, everyone remembers "Longview," "Basket Case," and "When I Come Around". Those songs and videos were played around the clock on the radio and MTV, earning them diamond status. "Longview" was their first single off of the record, and a huge hit, thanks to it's raw bass line, heavy guitar, audacious attitudes, and catchy melodies. I feel sorry for the kids that have to put up with today's pop music. I feel pretty privileged growing up in the boom of grunge. It's not as great as the 60s or 70s, but a hell of a lot better than the pop music the new millennium has brought us. "Basket Case" was most definitely their most popular song of all time, maybe forever. It saturated the airwaves far more than it's predecessor, reaching a much larger audience. The same could be said about "When I Come Around", they simply kept topping themselves with bigger hits. Aside from the hits, there was also some great album tracks, such as the lovely "She" and "Pulling Teeth," and "Welcome To Paradise" (a re-recording of the same song off of their "Kerplunk" album) which also received airplay. This album was a defining moment in which I learned to appreciate a "full album" as opposed to single tracks. Ever since then I've been on the quest for the perfect album.

Another thing that I've always been obsessed with, is the album artwork. I had a large poster of the illustration hanging in my room that I'll never forget (since I lost it over time). Dogs throwing and launching crap at everyone, including Jesus. It was some pretty funny stuff; very punk.

I can say with pride, that these guys are still one of my favorite bands. I haven't missed a beat of their career, and thankfully, they still haven't made a bad record to this date. If you like any sort of rock music, I have no doubt that you will like this album.

I see the cynical 1990s producing a "Generation X Holy Trinity" of angst-ridden rock. These three albums include Nirvana's "Nevermind," Nine Inch Nails "The Downward Spiral," and Green Day's "Dookie." These albums are the voice of teen and post-teen frustration.

While "Nevermind" was lyrically abstract and "The Downward Spiral" was more direct-both albums depicted themes of desperation and chaos. In contrast, although quite cynical, "Dookie" is a far more upbeat album. "Dookie" shares themes similar with the other two albums; nihilism, lethargy, entrapment, and hopelessness, but it has one thing that the other two albums lack-a sense of humor. The songs are mostly tongue-in-cheek. The same message is conveyed, but in a far more juvenile, albeit sincere tone.

Although "Dookie" was the band's breakthrough smash, it was actually the bands third album, following "1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours" (1990, 1991) (a combined album and EP) and "Kurplunk" (1992). By the release of "Dookie," the band had perfected its pop/punk formula. Although it didn't start with Green Day, they brought popish assessable punk to the mainstream. Many other bands throughout the 90s/00s used/use "Dookie" as a blueprint for their inspiration.

Although singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong's songs are straight-forward and simple, they are extremely infectious. These songs have an intense vitality, but are also highly melodic. Virtually every song on "Dookie" could have been released as a single. Although the songs sound similar, the album never gets redundant, because the album is well-paced with a good mix of fast and mid-tempo compositions. Drummer Tre Cool and Bassist Mike Dirnt provide an ample and stellar rhythm section.

Released in 1994, this album has stood the test of time and has aged well. Whether it is 1994 or 2005, if you're in your late teens or 20s, just out of high school or college, and don't know what to do with your life, you can really relate to these songs. It is no small wonder why "Dookie" has sold over eight million copies.

Compared to "Nevermind" or "The Downward Spiral," "Dookie" may not be as complex or brilliant, but it's still a classic album that conveys many of the same themes. Although imitated by lesser bands (Good Charlotte, Sum 41), Green Day is the definitive pop-punk band of the 1990s and beyond.

"Dookie" is an essential album to own for any modern rock collection.

i was a little skeptical about getting this album, because i was rather partial to Insomniac, which is a lot harder and angrier compared to Dookie. But i was pleasently surprised. though not as hard, it's full of what i like to call classic Green Day.

1) Burnout- Great song, i liked the drum part towards the end.
2) Having a Blast- my favorite song on the album, strong, angry, driving
3) Chump- i liked this one too. i don't mind the huge instrumental towards the end. it sounds cool.
4) Longview- very popular, but not my favorite. i liked the bass part
5) Welcome to Paradise- i honestly like the Kerplunk version better, but thats just me
6) Pulling Teeth- great lyrics, love this one
7) Basketcase- the classic. these lyrics are awesome
8) She- good song. good bass
9) Sassafras Roots- one of my favorites, Billie muses "so why are you alone wasting your time? you could be with ME wasting your time..."
10) When I Come Around- very true, wise song. some people consider it a ballad, but they're stupid. this is no ballad.
11) Coming Clean- a little short, but nevertheless true and timeless
12) Emenius Sleepus- really liked this one. awesome guitar part.
13) In the End- fast paced song about a guy apathetically mourning the loss of his girl to her own selfish tendencies. good song.
14) F.O.D.- one of the best on the album. starts out as an acoustic ballad and morphs into a hard angry rock song (F.O.D stands for 'F*ck Off and Die')
(**) "All By Myself"- okay, let's just say the first time i heard this, my first though was: 'what the HECK was that?!'

If you a fan of Green Day, get this cd. but don't forget to check out they're early stuff, Kerplunk and 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hour and such. you won't be disappointed.

I've always been a HUGE Green Day fan- They've been one of my all-time favorite bands ever since I first got into music, back in 93, a year before this great cd came out. Anyway, if you buy one Green Day album this year, make it this one- It has some awesome songs on it- like Burnout, Longview, Pulling Teeth, Basket Case, Welcome to Paradise, She, & my favorite, When I Come Around. No punk rock lover should be without this- Hell, no punk rock lover should be without all 5 of Green Day's albums!

Who are you people? Where did you come from?

Oh, I get it. American Idiot sells a bazillion copies and the kids who purchased it want to get into Green Day's older stuff. So, they purchase Dookie and fall in love. The band is a huge commodity all over again, and just like before, you get a hoarde of pretentious wankers trying to shove down your throat what constitutes as "real" music. How Green Day isn't punk. How you should get a Sex Pistols album. Blah, blah, blah. Conformity as nonconformity. I love it. Like the Sex Pistols are something obscure. Wannabe hipsters.

I hope you guys feel good about yourselves, 'cause Green Day fans obviously aren't listening to you. Do you feel cool and above-it-all by trashing this and other successful albums? I hope so. I'm proud of you. I really am. I'm so impressed with your knowledge of true punk music! How many Big Black albums did you say you own? None? Hmm... interesting.

It's loud, it's snotty and it's fun. It's poppy, but it's still punk rock. The Ramones? Pfeh. They've been trying to sell out since their first album; they just never crossed the finish line in time. But, their music is still great. And so is Green Day's. Don't let whatever's popular dictate YOUR tastes in music, you mindless sheep. See? It works both ways. BAAA!

Tables... turned. Owned. The lot of you.

Yes, they've sold millions of records, but so what? Green Day is still a great band, and Dookie is a great album. Green Day took the inane lyrics of the Ramones, and the pop-punk sounds of the Buzzcocks and Descendents and created a fun, loud, punk album with a sound of the band's own. "Burnout," "Chump," and "She" are all great, fast, three-chord punk tunes. Unlike the slew of cookie-cutter punk bands with tired riffs and incredibly stupid lyrics, Green Day can be fun without annoying immaturity and can write more "mature" songs without sounding forced. "Welcome To Paradise" captures the pain of leaving home and setting out on your own in a rough town. "Emenius Sleepus" talks about growing up and thus growing apart from a longtime friend, something that lots of people (including me) can relate to. "Pulling Teeth" deals with an abusive girlfriend while the hit "Basket Case" is an anthem for when you think you're losing your mind. With "When I Come Around," Green Day showed that they were capable of writing a great pop tune. I listen to The Clash, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Descendents, Bad Brains, Buzzcocks, Pixies, Husker Du, etc., and I still like Dookie. It's not the greatest punk record, and Green Day is not the greatest punk band. But Dookie is a great album, and that's all that matters.

This is the first major label release for Green Day, though it is the third full length album by the group. Still having the raw young punk vibe from the first albums, mixed with a greater craft skill that would keep them evolving with later albums, this is a great cd. It walks the fine line between those who like the early stuff and those who enjoy the more polished sound of today. I don't think they have matched the level they achieved with this album on anything except American Idiot, which is also fantastic from start to finish. This is a must have for any Green Day Fan. Also check out Pinhead Gunpowder for more of an older Green Day sound. Billie Joe is a member of Pinhead, so if it sounds like him, it is.

Yeah, it's vacant. And yeah, all the songs sound the same, but that's called "having your own style", people. Like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Sublime, Green Day is one of the only 90's acts that has a distinctive voice.

And what does this voice want? Well, mostly it wants to drop out of school, screw hot girls, blow stuff up, and eat really sugary cereal. There's no pretensious crap on this record. It's made by normal guys trying to live a normal life, and the normal guys are only good at one thing: making 2-3 minute catchy punk songs.

The secret to this album is that EVERY SONG could have been a hit single, and if I remember right, nearly all of them were, or I heard them on the radio at some point. "Burnout" kickstarts the album and it doesn't stop, with Chump flowing into Longview, the decade's most profane radio hit (well, maybe NIN "closer" was worse). Welcome to Paradise, a reissue from an older record, is killer, especially when mike dint starts doing his bass execises in the middle. Then, like a drum-powered nuclear rocket destroying the sun, "Basket Case" comes on. It's the best summer song ever, the perfect LENGTH--you always want a minute more when it ends. You think the album's done and then that damn "When I COme Around" hook gets you. And are we done there? Nope, you still got "seeeeeventeen and strung out on confusion" coming up to smack you around, and when its all over, there's a hilarious hidden track.

This album is like a bowl of fruit loops, or a bowl of weed. It's just fun. Too bad green day could never branch out like Sublime to create 5 star music. If you have this album, you dont need any of their others.

How anyone can say nimrod is better than this cd is beyond me. of all green day's cds to date, this one moves me more than any other. Every song on this cd is playable, and i never skip a song. Green day is my favorite band of ALL times and i will never get tired of this cd. I first saw "Longview" on MTV when i was 10 years old, and my mom woulnd't let me watch MTV after she saw it. Green day slipped from my mind as many things tend to do, and i didn't think about them again until Nimrod came out. WHen it did, i bought the cd without hearing any of the songs, and i thought it was great. Another year or so past, and as i was parusing the isles in my local music shop i came upon INSOMNIAC. I had heard some tracks before, and i decided to buy it. I was amazed. I went on a week long journey after that, and when i returned, i returned with DOOKIE in my hand. -HAHA. I then went and bought Kerplunk and 1003 smoothed out slappy hours. although good, these can't compare to dookie. i bought WARNING two weeks ago, and it's a great cd, but i cannot stress enough how much i love Dookie. I am probably listening to it as you read this. It has influenced me more than jjust about anything.

It feels a little weird reviewing this album. See, back in middle school, Dookie was practically a religious artifact for me. I probably played my copy a good solid three or four times a day, thrilling to ever last note of the thing. In my mind, there was no better pop songwriter than Billie Joe Armstrong, no drummer more forceful than Tre Cool, no bassist with more rhythmic ferocity than Mike Dirnt. I also loved Armstrong's nasal voice and brutally simple guitar playing (nothin' but power chords, baby!). I loved their music because it was fun, it was catchy, and the lyrics spoke to my whiney, angst-ridden 8th-grade self. I was a shy, awkward, apathetic, socially backwards kid, so it's natural that I appreciated an album full of songs about alienation, anger (the good, passive-aggressive kind), detachment, the paralyzing inability to talk to girls, and of course, the two-edged sword that is masturbation. Armstrong's tongue-in-cheek sense of humor spoke to my ever-present sarcastic side. Songs like "In the End" and "Chump" spoke to my irritation at my crushes and their abysmal taste in boyfriends, "Basket Case" made me feel like the hilarious weirdo that I'd always wanted to be, "Welcome to Paradise" taught me how to sing along to a rockin' chorus, and "Burnout" taught me that it was okay not to care about anything.

And then I grew up. I discovered more "mature" music. I did as I was expected and grew out of my old Green Day albums, and moved on to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and so on. I learned that Green Day had been copping their sound from innovators like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and the Clash and the Buzzcocks (with a bit of the Who thrown in for good measure). In short, I learned that Dookie isn't the greatest album of all time. Not even close. Green Day's brand of pop punk has been done much better elsewhere (for proof, check out the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady, the Ramones' first three albums, or the Clash's debut). Dookie doesn't really bring anything new to the mix- everything from the album's simple three-chord musical formula to the angst `n' sophomoric humor laden lyrics is a direct throwback to the 70s. Aside from that, some of these songs have simply lost their power over me: "Emenius Sleeps" is ultra-generic 90s style rock, and "Pulling Teeth" is a dull (if nicely amped-up) power ballad with an incredibly irritating vocal. I could also do without the high-speed but bland "In the End."

But seriously, in spite of all that, I still like Dookie. It has nothing to do with nostalgia; I have too many unpleasant memories to be nostalgic about my middle school days, anyway. I think that this is a good album because it really does rock- I mean, Green Day may just be copying the best of punk's glory days, but they do it really well. Billie Joe's guitar is forceful, blunt, and full of electrified, bouncing-off-the-walls energy, and Mike's bass lines are incredibly exciting. Plus, Tre really is a hell of a drummer. He may not be Keith Moon (from the Who. Listen to "Happy Jack"), but he does know how to smash those skins. Just listen to those spring-loaded mini drum solos that he unleashes in "Burnout!" They're so exciting. And there really is genuine emotion in the lyrics- "Coming Clean" captures the pains and harrows of self-honesty with an almost poetic eye ("I've found out what it takes to be a man/ And Mom and Dad will never understand"), while "Welcome to Paradise" is wonderfully wrought story of alienation and self-dependence, and "Having A Blast" demonstrates Armstrong's knack for dark humor and excellent word choice (I mean seriously, how many "middle school" bands were writing songs from the perspective of suicide bombers?).

So, in other words, I like Dookie because it's fun, it's catchy, and the lyrics speak to my whiney, angst-ridden college freshman self. I guess some things never change.