4 - Insomniac

Green Day think Insomniac is their most honest album. I think it's their best. It's also my favorite. It's about their own immense internal conflict.

The only thing they want to do is make more music. Caffienate themsleves to the bursting point, bash out a 2 minute masterpiece, take a nap until their fingers stop bleeding, and do it again. Why? Because they are proving to themselves that they deserve their success. We worked for it. We are in charge. Why do we believe that stupid story that we're flash in the pan posers?

Every song is a story by a narrator who hates himself for actually acting like a loser. Billie Joe is auditioning amps for every song because he wants it to sound exactly right, but his inner teenager is sneering at how pretentious that is.

So what are we talking about? I don't want to be a trust fund loser. I don't want to be a meth-head. I don't want to drink rage-a-hol. I don't want to have panic attacks. I don't want to be an image. I don't want to be a bitter old man who feels like he wasted his life. Yeah, that might have ruffled a few Berkely gutter-punk tick infested feathers that couldn't recognize their own hypochriphal narratives.

Critics didn't understand this album. You can tell because they say "it's good, but not as good as we want it to be. They should have done all the things these other bands did so we can play the whose better than who game." They miss the important part: it's not about them. It's about what feeling like a walking contradiction actually feels like. It's a story, but everyone forgets that it takes place in an imaginary world inside Billie Joe Armstrong's head.

It's Dookie part 2 in every respect. Part 1 was i feel like a loser, Part 2 is i'm going to stop acting like one.

I believe it was me who said if we're all going to act like 12 year olds, then i'm going to be the best 12 year old ever.

5 - Nimrod

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