# I thought Green Day was supposed to be punk, not emo!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-thought-green-day-was-supposed-to-be-punk-not-emo/518147>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 19, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-thought-green-day-was-supposed-to-be-punk-not-emo/518147 "2009-11-19T14:55:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-thought-green-day-was-supposed-to-be-punk-not-emo/518147/41 "2009-11-21T21:49:34Z")

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> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I would like to be the first to welcome the OP to 2004. If you liked American Idiot, you might also like 21st Century Breakdown…when you hear it in 2015.😃

No, you may _not_ welcome me to the new Millennium! 😛  
I am old. I like my music old, too. 😃  
Is that too much to ask?

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**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-thought-green-day-was-supposed-to-be-punk-not-emo/518147/42 "2009-11-23T13:26:29Z")

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> [@jjimm](#):
>
> My takes is that this is deliberate. I seem to recall an interview with Billie Joe Armstrong where he stated this outright. The entire album is a progression through a character’s (‘Jesus of Suburbia’) emotional state, and this song is the character’s whining.
> 
> I am biased, but I too heartily recommend listening to the album in its entirety. There’s very little whining on it. To me it was a surprising, angry and brave cry against the prevalent attitudes in post-9/11 America, and really captures the silent minority anti-Bush Zeitgeist of the mid-naughties. Seriously, I think that album a work of brilliance.

I agree with this take - Green Day does tend to mine the nihilist aspect of punk in general, but American Idiot is bigger than that.

As for what punk is…meh. There is a “punkist” mindset about what is and is not punk that is pretty amazing and ironic in its desire to establish rules for something that was about trying to break rules. I look back to [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=450631)for where that thinking can lead…(thread where posters are stating that original punk bands aren’t punk because, well, they aren’t \*their definition \*of punk…oy.)

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