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List Price: $19.95 | | Publisher: The Disinformation Company
Salesrank: 268280
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| Our Price: $6.00 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
The Green Day story is very blunt: three school friends grow up together in a cluster of small blue-collar Californian towns, form a band and sell over 50 million albums. Except it wasn't that simple. Self-confessed latch-key kids, theirs was far from an easy ride.
Inspired by both the energy of British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and cult American bands such as Dead Kennedys and Husker Du, Green Day formed in 1989. The band gigged relentlessly across the US, quickly selling out every underground club that booked them, and their 1994 major label debut Dookie was a 10-million-selling worldwide hit album that seized the zeitgeist while rock music was still reeling from the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. They toured the world, headlined all the big festivals, won countless awards and released multi-million selling albums.
In 2004 Green Day reached a career pinnacle with the concept album American Idiot, a sophisticated commentary on modern life-not least dissatisfaction with their president and America's continued cultural and economic imperialism. The No. 1 success of the Grammy-winning album extended Green Day's fan base even further-from pre-teen kids to previously skeptical critics.
This book is the world's first full biography on Green Day. An authority on punk and hardcore, author Ben Myers charts the band members' difficult childhoods, the context of the band within the US and world punk scene and their glittering rise to success. Myers has also interviewed the band for various magazines at different stages of their career.
Green Day: American Idiots & The New Punk Explosion Reviews:
Good book, but could use more editing. 
2009-05-19 - Green Day is a good band, and this biography is okay. However, there are many typos that can't be ignored (Green Day are bringing punk rick to the masses?) and the average person who flips through the book would think that the singer's name is "Billy Joe".
Most of the information is good, though, and most Green Day fans will enjoy it. The author makes references to his experiences with Green Day, which would've been cooler if it hadn't sounded like he was trying too hard to show how big of a fan he was.
The chapter about American Idiot was also poor, because it tried too hard to make Green Day sound like saviors for enlightening the world about the evils of George Bush.
It's alright. I'd give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Good Reading 
2009-02-10 - A good book, but not the Best Book, on Green Day. Lots of tie-ins with other bands and local history from the times. Definitely add it to your Green Day library.
Recommended even for those who know nothing about Green Day 
2006-10-19 - This is an unauthorized, but very favorable, biography of Green Day, one of the world's biggest punk music bands.
The trio that became Green Day grew up in small towns near San Francisco. Each coming from difficult family circumstances, they fell in love with punk music (the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, among many others). They formed a band, and soon became mainstays at a place called 924 Gilman. It was little more than a vacant building, but it quickly became a West Coast punk rock mecca. On any given night, veteran punk bands and bands playing their first gig would share the bill.
In the early days, Green Day was constantly on tour. They played basements, squats, anywhere they could plug in their instruments. Some nights, their audience might reach double digits, and other nights they might actually get paid for their efforts. They were living the punk rock lifestyle, fueled by large amounts of alcohol. They were loose and slacker-like about many things, but they were totally serious about their music.
Slowly but surely, they were building a fan base. Their first two albums, on a small punk label, did really well, eventually selling in the hundreds of thousands. Their first major label release, Dookie, in 1994, was a blockbuster, eventually selling 10 million copies. Marriage, fatherhood and burnout became a part of their lives, so they cut back on the incessant touring. But they were now filling major arenas. While some punk music can be indistinguishable from very loud, random noise, a big influence for Green Day was 1960s British bands, so there was actual music in their songs. In 2004, they released a concept album called American Idiot, another blockbuster and Grammy winner, giving their view of present-day America.
I really enjoyed reading this book. Of course, this book is highly recommended for those who own any of the band's musical output. It is also recommended for anyone, yours truly included, who has seen a video or two of theirs on TV, but who knows little or nothing about punk music in general, or Green Day in particular.
