From Booklist
After years of failing to duplicate its album
Dookie's success, punk-rocking Green Day seemed dead in the water. An undercurrent of critical disdain had always held that the band purveyed punk lite and was an aggregation of poseurs compared to legendary punk outfits the Clash and the Ramones. Then the group's eighth album,
American Idiot, hit the top of the charts in 2004 and stayed there, catapulting Green Day back into public attention. Spitz, a senior writer for
Spin, sympathetically limns the arc of the lads' career from East Bay, California, in informative if unchallenging style. Probably headed for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of their commercial success playing punk, a subgenre that has rarely exerted mass commercial appeal, Green Day deserves representation in rockin' library collections.^B
Mike TribbyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
The full story of the rise and spectacular comeback of the band hailed as the saviors of punk rock Its hard to believe that in early 2004 Green Day was considered over -- the band was still together, but they were dismissed as a strictly 90s phenomenon, incapable of re-creating the success of their groundbreaking album Dookie. Then American Idiot debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, stayed on the charts for nearly 18 months, and went on to sell more than four million records and to win Record of the Year (for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams") at this years Grammys. Combining unique access to Green Day with a seasoned journalists nose for a great story, Marc Spitz gives the complete account of the band, from their earliest days to their most recent explosion of popularity and critical acclaim. Foremost, Nobody Likes You is a story of friendship and the transporting power of playing very loud music. It is the story of how high school dropout Billie Joe Armstrong came to write song lyrics that inflamed the political conscience of fans in a way that two Yale graduates couldnt. Green Days story -- from rise, to fall, to rise again -- has never before been fully told.
