Green Day
Kerplunk

When Green Day were still truly green and in full bloom, and not the band they are today...

The second and also the last album for the independent label Lookout, before moving definitively to a major with the following "Dookie", this album stands out for its simplicity.

As easy as you like, but still genuine and fresh enough to produce 16 songs, in the vein of the most classic pop punk, which would inspire the birth of many very similar bands in the future.

Let's start by saying that sound-wise this "Kerplunk" does not differ much from its much more famous successor, in fact, I must say that some tracks that compose the album, if they had come out later, could have achieved the success of the subsequent singles. The reference is to the beautiful "2000 light years away" which follows the classic style of the band, pop punk but done well. It is followed by the equally beautiful "One for the razorblade" and my favorite piece by the Green Days, "Welcome to paradise", which will later be slightly modified and included in "Dookie". Basically, the Dookie version is slightly longer, and unlike the first, the background choruses of the refrain are removed, and the riffing is perfected and made cleaner, apart from these small differences it's the same.

Then we pause for a moment with the ballad "Christie road". And it would be fair to say that the ballads on this record, when compared to "When I come around", are even superior. The prize for the most fun track on the record goes to "Dominated love slave", a song with country-folk traits written and sung by the new drummer Tre Cool. Meanwhile, "Private ale" and "One on my lies" are two other great pieces of pure pop punk. And here comes the second ballad "No one knows", very nice, characterized by a particular intro that captures you like never before, one of the best on the record. From 13 to 16, we find the songs from a previous EP "Sweet children", with "Best thing in town" highlighted as the best of the four (very hc punk old school), "Strangeland", and the Who cover of "My generation", performed well and closed with final belches that make you smile. You will notice a big difference between the last tracks and the rest of the album from a musical point of view. In fact, the pieces contained in the EP are also the last very fast and raw pieces that Green Day will make (alas). Splendid and truly punk songs like the excellent and very fast "Best things in town" will not be heard again in the future.

Qualitatively better than the decent start, in my opinion, "Kerplunk" is the most beautiful Green Day album along with "Dookie", in some respects even superior to the latter.

The band would later sign with a major, increasingly losing the sound and freshness of the origins, and even ending up producing partial flops like "Insomniac" (truly ugly) and "Warning", almost being forgotten until their comeback in 2004 with "American Idiot". Many fans have hoped for a successor worthy of "Dookie" for years after its release, a "Dookie2" in short, but instead of looking for it later, know that the best continuation of Dookie is precisely this earlier "Kerplunk" from 1991 and certainly not "American Idiot", which is a decent work but remains stylistically far from the Californian trio's beginnings.

Of course, if you want high-school perfectionism, ultra-elaborate melodies, and clean, pristine sound, turn to other bands or other genres; here there's only room for the enjoyment of hearing a band in its early days and still untainted. Finally, a final note: the record present here (along with the first and "Dookie") was remastered last year, improving the original production that was not at all excellent.