There is a special significance to Green Day album songs. They came at a time in music history when punk rock wasn’t selling as well as it used to. The band that generated these compositions however, changed all that. When it comes to selling punk, few have been as good as this band.

The band has probably tasted the most success in the 1990s. Their official formation however is pinned in 1987 when pals Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt came together and formed Sweet Children. The other two original members were Al Sobrante and Sean Hughes. Lookout! Records was the first to discover and take the group under its wing in 1989. This prompted a controversial name change that many fans say is an unconfirmed tribute to marijuana. The band of course, denies this.

With Lookout! the group was able to release a couple of EPs. It was really 1994 however that proved to be their year. They signed up with a new label, Reprise Records and released their album, Dookie. For a first release, this one was considered extremely successful. It reached diamond status and was named as the Best Alternative Album of 1995 in the Grammy Awards.

On the year that they got their first Grammy, the group finished work on Insomniac. Like the first of the Green Day albums, this one was an absolute commercial success with thousands in Green Day merch sales but it was not as much as a sensation as the first one. It is possibly because the album carries a darker theme.

Two years after Insomniac, Nimrod was released. Unlike the first two releases, this one featured a seeming style move. Pop, ska and acoustic renditions were notably observed. Not every fan warmed up to the new sound but the album still managed to climb up to number ten in the charts.

It took the group more than two years to release Warning. The album was certified gold and was awarded Outstanding Album in the California Music Awards. These however were a far cry from the standings of the other albums. The lower sales of this third release were thought by many to be a sign of the band’s loss of relevance.

It took four more years for the group to prove all the naysayers wrong. American Idiot was so well accepted that it became the band’s first chart topper and Best Rock Album in the Grammys. It was so popular that it even inspired a musical.

In 2009, the band released 21st Century Breakdown. Like the other first successes, this one became platinum and there was no question that Green Day was back in excellent form.

This is definitely no pioneering group. No one can argue though that without Green Day, there would not be all this enduring fascination over punk rock. The group has been widely criticized for selling out and for almost looking like fake punks wearing rock tees. None of the criticisms really matter though. Even if it is true that the band was lured into the mainstream, they were able to successfully sell that idea that punk rock is every bit as engaging as other popular forms of music.

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