Green Day
1039/ Smoothed Out Slappy Hours

THE REVIEW

All it took was a simple ultra-catchy tune à la Avril Lavigne for Green Day to become famous among thirteen-year-olds, fans of Tiziano Ferro and Gigi D'alessio (the biggest destroy balls!), to make them re-enter the charts with an album released three months earlier (American Idiot), to make them broadcast on all TVs, all radios (except Radio Maria). Not everyone knows that Green Day have been releasing albums since 1990. Their debut is a blend of an album (39/Smooth) and two EPs (Slappy and 1000 Hours)... result: 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, released with Lookout; a simple album as per punk tradition: songs with three chords, three minutes, three words that are not "sun, heart, and love," but "fun, girls, and idiocy"!

The tracks are fast and melodic, the lyrics fresh and naive, in short, a CD to have fun with. It starts with "At The Library" and you can tell the audio quality isn't excellent but that's the beauty: simplicity! "I Was There" analyzes the feelings of someone who always looks back. As we scroll through, we find "Green Day" and it's not hard to guess what it's about...! "16" is the declaration of wanting to remain a teenager: "I wish my youth would last forever because these times are so unfair". Dwelling on each single track is pointless since the album is absolutely homogeneous apart from some episodes, like the slow "Rest" which at times resembles "Hole In The Sun" by Soundgarden... The intro of "Paper Lanterns" immediately recalls that of "Welcome To Paradise", while the country cover of "Knowledge" earns the title of the most fun song on the album. It closes with "I Want To Be Alone"—a debut album that doesn't make you reflect on anything, isn't a concentration of imagination, but is undoubtedly a pleasant album written by three sixteen-year-olds. Of course, now Green Day have grown up, they take on the Bush administration, they get pissed off with the "American idiot" but they too were teenagers and these songs are the proof.