Album Review: Warning by Green Day

Green Day have always defied the odds. Who’d have thought, for instance, that their 1994 major label debut, ”Dookie,” with its short and sour, punk inspired guitar attacks, would go multiplatinum, much less win these assiduous brats a Grammy? Or that six years later, with Warning, guitarist/ complainer Billie Joe Armstrong, pushing 30, would manage to remain entertainingly adolescent while allowing for a few lifestyle modifications? Where on ”Dookie” he sang, ”I’m not growing up, I’m just burning out,” ”Warning”’s ”Church on Sunday” has him acknowledging that he’s not getting any younger, and asking ”If I promise to go to church with you on Sunday/ Will you go with me on Friday night,” wrapping it all up with the startling declaration ”If you live with me, I’ll die for you and this compromise. ” He surrounds these piquant sentiments with music as peppy as any Green Day have recorded, allowing a way to grow up without losing much in the way of spunk or sass.

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Poor Green Day. There are a lot of so-called punks out there who are going to cry “sell out” no matter what the band does. Living up to everyone’s definition of a “punk” band is virtually impossible, but Green Day are at a special disadvantage by now. With major-label platinum albums under their belts, boasting a singer who is a married father with a well-fed physique, Green Day can hardly pretend they are lean and hungry youths anymore.

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