New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
Green Day digest strictly for diehard devotees
https://youtu.be/NUTGr5t3MoY
Green Day FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the World’s Most Popular Punk Band
Hank Bordowitz
(Backbeat Books, £15.99)
IT’S somewhat audacious to claim that Green Day inspired “nearly as many bands to pick up instruments as Elvis, The Beatles and the Ramones.” Yet that unsubstantiated assertion is one of many hyperbolic flights in Hank Bordowitz’s book.
[[{"type":"media","fid":"8406","view_mode":"inlineright","instance_fields":"override","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":""}]]The journalist, who’s written for the likes of Playboy and Huffington Post, is an unashamed fan-boy of the punk-pop band. Lauding their working-class roots and their lyrical transition “from pot and poop to politics,” he covers everything you wanted to know about the trio and more besides.
The snag to his fandom is its tendency to lack perspective or critical capacity. Although well researched — there's a 16-page bibliography — there’s no attempt at analysis and, with no fresh interviews with the band or their associates, the book is reduced to something of a cut-and-paste enterprise.
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