•
Rating: It's been three years since the release of "21st Century Breakdown" and Billie Joe and company are coming up with a way to ensure their daily bread. "Uno" is the first chapter of the Green Day trilogy, released on September 25, 2012. The album opens with "Nuclear Family," a classic pop punk song with three chords, ideal for giving the listener just the right energy. It continues with "Stay The Night," a track certainly more interesting than the previous one, containing a tribute to the Pink Floyd song "Summer '68" (the initial guitar riff). The following song is "Carpe Diem," a clear homage to '90s punk rock, with the right pop hues that have always set Green Day apart. The fourth track is "Let Yourself Go," the only true punk song in the entire trilogy, with a Nimrod/Dookie-style chorus. The fifth track is "Kill The DJ," the most radio-friendly of the entire album, with a chorus that hammers into your head until it gets in and doesn't leave. The next is "Fell For You," a song I find useless and filler, with a whiny and distressing chorus. "Loss Of Control," on the other hand, is an energetic song but not comparable to American Idiot-era songs. "Troublemaker" is, like "Fell For You," a ridiculous and filler track, lacking in soul and meaning. The album continues with the trash riff of "Angel Blue," which continues with "Sweet 16," containing the same chords as "Amanda" and "Mother Mary" (the latter by Foxboro Hot Tubs, a Green Day side project). "Rusty James," the penultimate track, stands out from the others thanks to the riff that closely resembles Blink 182 songs. The last track is "Oh Love," released as a single: it is a sappy and nauseating song, at times even boring. Below are the ratings of the individual songs:
Nuclear Family: 7
Stay The Night: 6.5
Carpe Diem: 7
Let Yourself Go: 8.5
Kill The Dj: 7+
Fell For You: 4.5
Loss Of Control: 6.5
Troublemaker: 6
Angel Blue: 5
Sweet 16: 5
Rusty James: 6
Oh Love: 6
OVERALL RATING: 6
REVIEW: The high ratings of "Let Yourself Go" and "Kill The DJ" do not hold up against the disastrous ratings of the other tracks, significantly lowering the average.
PASSED: YES (With a pass)
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By definitelyalex
"We wanted something bold, halfway between AC/DC and the early Beatles."
The first five tracks have an extremely high average quality, from the explosive opening of 'Nuclear Family' to the stadium rock of 'Stay The Night'.
By pisquano94
The production penalizes the guitars, reduced to a bland and marginal role, almost as if Billie Joe forgot to plug in the distortion.
What also transpires from this album... is the abysmally low quality level of the lyrics.
By luigionio
Let Yourself Go is an explosion of that old fun punk that Green Day used to do.
Uno is not a Rock Opera, nor a masterpiece, but a simple album that sounds 'almost' like a bad Green Day album from the past.
By RiseAgainst
"The real problem with Uno! lies with the listener’s ear."
"‘Let Yourself Go’ is the most punk rock song on the album, actually, the only one on the album, which I find somewhat sad."
