Green Day released “Good Riddance” as the penultimate track off their fifth studio album, Nimrod, on October 14, 1997. And “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” illustrates why. Their story demands to be told in more than two parts. They’re one of the greatest rock bands of all time, descendants of Cobain and Strummer but also McCartney and Springsteen. They’re not “sellouts.” And they’re not two-hit wonders. Green Day is not a harmless musical institution.
These were albums as events among fans, they warp our memories like victories in war. It’s rare that a band can puncture the public consciousness even one time, let alone twice, and each time in a manner so emphatic.
After Dookie, people called Green Day the next Nirvana in 2006, music critic Marc Spitz likened American Idiot to Elvis Presley’s 1968 comeback special. Dookie and American Idiot are imprinted prominently on the psyches of two separate generations. Chances are they’ll reply with either “Basket Case” or “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” They’ll do this not because these are actually Green Day’s most illuminating or quintessential songs, but because they remain psychologically in thrall to the albums that gave birth to them. Press even a semi-serious Green Day fan to name Green Day’s most illuminating or quintessential song. Even fans don’t give them their proper due, in that we condense their legacy into but two bygone accomplishments: the release of Dookie, an album that improbably turned Green Day into the biggest band on the planet in 1994, and American Idiot, which came out 10 years later and improbably minted Green Day as the biggest band on the planet once again. Elsewhere they’re deemed corporatized beneficiaries of circumstance. In certain quarters they’re still derided as strike-breaking sellouts. By virtue of their longevity, their effervescent live show, and the lasting, Petty-esque sing-along-ability of almost everything they put out between 19, Green Day have secured a reputation as a reliable, relatively harmless musical institution-less maligned than Weezer, though not quite as coolly revered as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Which is, in some ways, to the band’s credit. People don’t talk about Green Day quite as much as they used to-and the discourse surrounding them is not as divisive as it once was. So it is with the story of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” released 25 years ago this week by Green Day, the Oakland-based punk-rock outfit. In rare cases, however, such stories can prove not only revealing, but redemptive. That Noel Gallagher wrote “Supersonic” in 10 minutes high on cocaine tells you much of what you need to know about Oasis circa 1994, for example. Sometimes the details are perfunctory, signifying little.
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