The best Green Day song from every studio album (2024)

When it’s all said and done, Green Day could very well be the most important punk band of all time. While they weren’t around during the genre’s explosion in the late 1970s and were just ahead of the hardcore underground scene of the 1980s, Green Day was the key band in keeping punk in the public eye while grunge, hip-hop, R&B, and adult contemporary took over the 1990s.

Although they didn’t invent the subgenre, Green Day are the biggest and most visible pop-punk band that ever lived. Instead of leaning into the heavier side of hardcore or branching off into ska-punk like their heroes, fellow Bay Area knuckleheads Operation Ivy, Green Day opted to use pop hooks as their most essential weapon. That helped them break into the mainstream music scene of the early 1990s, but it also caused controversy with punk’s gatekeepers. The band’s willingness to play ball with the industry was seen as a betrayal of traditional punk ethos, and Green Day was left to its own devices throughout much of its career.

Instead of bowing to the pressure, the band continued to put out fascinating variations of their signature sound. Everything from folk, blues, jazz, acoustic music, ska, disco, hard rock, and classical music has filtered into Green Day’s material. Across more than 30 years, the group have released 13 studio albums, all with their own distinct sound and style.

For an outsider looking to leap into the band’s deep discography, it can seem like an insurmountable task trying to navigate through the group’s 200-song-strong repertoire. If you’re just looking for the best, then you’ve come to the right place. Here are the best songs from every Green Day studio album.

The best Green Day song from every studio album:

39/Smooth – ‘Going to Pasalacqua’

Green Day’s debut LP, 39/Smooth, was a true underground album. Released on the influential independent punk label Lookout Records, the LP was the group’s only album to feature original drummer John Kiffmeyer. Selling roughly 3,000 copies on its original release, 39/Smooth features a band that is lightyears away from the world-conquering stadium act in terms of attitude and approach.

What’s most surprising about their debut is that Green Day doesn’t actually sound all that different from their Dookie era breakthrough. They don’t have the rabid attack of Tré Cool just yet, but they do have a dozen highly charming songs. While ‘At the Library’ is a personal favourite and ‘Green Day’ features the sounds of a bong, ‘Going to Pasalacqua’ is the track that truly points Green Day toward their future.

Kerplunk – ‘One of My Lies’

By the time they reached their second album, Green Day had all the pieces in place. Cool was officially on board, and Billie Joe Armstrong was starting to hone in on his clever songwriting bent. The group didn’t have the money or resources to produce anything that sounded particularly good, but Kerplunk has plenty of ragged charm going for it.

In terms of songwriting and composition, the best song on Kerplunk is ‘Welcome to Paradise’. Unfortunately, the track is still in its embryonic stage, not yet the powerhouse single that would be re-recorded for Dookie. If you really want to know what made Green Day stand out in 1991, check out ‘One of My Lies’. The band even played the song during their infamous Woodstock ‘94 set, helping to bridge the gap between pre-major label Green Day and superstar punk band Green Day.

Dookie – ‘When I Come Around’

Where to start with Green Day’s classic major label debut, Dookie? Simply put, this album is the one with the highest number of great songs from the band’s catalogue, with classic singles like ‘Basket Case’, ‘Welcome to Paradise’, ‘She’ and ‘Longview’. The album’s deep cuts are even more enthralling, with tracks like ‘Burnout’, ‘Chump’ and ‘Coming Clean’ helping to define the classic Green Day sound.

But if you want pure pop punk Green Day at their absolute zenith, it’s hard to get any better than ‘When I Come Around’. Featuring one of Billie Joe Armstrong’s most potent riffs, ‘When I Come Around’ is the very definition of 1990s Green Day, distilled into three almost perfect minutes.

Insomniac – ‘Walking Contradiction’

There was no time to sleep for Green Day. That was both figurative and literal: the group’s intense touring schedule and high public demand caused them to enter the studio almost immediately after wrapping up the final support dates for Dookie. Fuelled by coffee and amphetamines, Insomniac was darker, faster, and less pop-oriented than Dookie, alienating some of the lighter fans that the band picked up along the way.

But Insomniac still contains some fantastic songs: the one-two punch of ‘Brain Stew’ and ‘Jaded’, the high-energy punch of ‘Stuck With Me’, and the self-deprecating ‘No Pride’ all stand out. But at the tail end of the album sits ‘Walking Contradiction’, a track so infectious that it would have fit perfectly on Dookie. Armstrong is at his best here, rattling off nonsensical and incongruous lyrics that are as enthralling as anything he ever put to paper.

Nimrod – ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’

By 1997, straightforward punk rock was beginning to get boring. Green Day was desperate to redefine themselves, even as their audience was begging for another Dookie. Instead, the band cranked out Nimrod, a massive 17-song collection that works in everything from ska to violin gipsy folk. Armstrong was at his wit’s end, channelling all his frustrations into intensely personal songs about falling off the wagon and losing his mind.

Famously, Nimrod is the album that features the band’s iconic acoustic ballad, ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’. But, ironically enough, the band’s most familiar punk song would be the album’s best. ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’ has one of Green Day’s most indelible choruses in the band’s canon, paired with some of Armstrong’s most cutting hilarious lyrics. Don’t sleep on Mike Dirnt’s power drill bassline and pitch-perfect harmonies, which were always the band’s not-so-secret weapon.

Warning – ‘Waiting’

Green Day was staring down the crossroads as the new millennium dawned. There were two ways to go: continue to be just another ‘90s punk band trying to keep their careers afloat, or go in a completely different direction. Warning was the final album that Green Day released where they could still possibly be written off. It’s lighter and folkier than any of the band’s previous albums, but it still has plenty of great songs on it.

Although it hurts not to give this slot to one of my personal favourites, ‘Macy’s Day Parade’, it’s hard to argue that ‘Waiting’ isn’t the best song on Warning. Even with its obvious steal from Petula Clark’s ‘Downtown’, ‘Waiting’ still feels like the most classic melody that appears on Warning. Green Day had much bigger things set for the future, but ‘Waiting’ proved that they would still be on top of the mountain if they had decided to stay in their classic ‘90s style.

American Idiot – ‘Jesus of Suburbia’

It was going to be business as usual for Green Day in the early 2000s. A set of punk rock songs entitled Cigarettes and Valentines was being recorded when a series of demos and other recordings were stolen from the band. Rather than re-recording them, the band decided to start over. Taking inspiration from the long history of rock operas, Green Day want to put their highest level of ambition on American Idiot.

Political tirades rubbed elbows with dense stories of lost youth and desolate surroundings, all soundtracked by some of the tightest and most potent music that Green Day had ever crafted. Everybody loves the hits like ‘Holiday’ and ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ (the band’s highest-charting pop single), but if you really want the best of American Idiot, you have to plug into the nine-minute epic that is ‘Jesus of Suburbia’.

21st Century Breakdown – ‘¡Viva la Gloria!’

After the major success of American Idiot, it only made sense to revisit the rock opera format for the follow-up, 21st Century Breakdown. Although less classic than its predecessor (and the unwitting start of Green Day’s late-period creative slide), Breakdown is still Green Da at its most ambitious.

Pop-centred tracks like ‘Know Your Enemy’ and ‘21 Guns’ go down easy, while songs like ‘American Eulogy’ attempt to replicate the same cohesiveness that was found on ‘Jesus of Suburbia’. But if you want some surprising and stylistically varied Green Day that still kicks ass, check out ‘¡Viva la Gloria!’, a track that’s both essential to the album’s plot and awesome on its own.

¡Uno! – ‘Oh Love’

The early 2010s was a confusing time to be Green Day. In order to try and inject some new blood, the band officially promoted touring guitarist Jason White to a full-time member and embarked on their most ambitious project to date: a trilogy of full-length albums featuring some of the most diverse musical choices the band had ever made.

To say ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! were collectively the band’s biggest failure isn’t quite accurate. What is true is that the band bit off way more than they could chew, and the truly great songs across the project barely amount to a single album’s worth of material, much less three. For ¡Uno!, stick with the infectious and triumphant chug of ‘Oh Love’.

¡Dos! – ‘Amy’

The most direct and focused album of the trio set, ¡Dos! is mostly just goofy garage rock fun. I don’t hate ‘Fuck Time’ and can even recommend ‘Stray Heart’ and ‘Ashley’. Most of the other tracks are mostly just lower-level punk rock filler tracks, but they do harken back to the deep cuts that fill out the band’s classic LPs.

The one real surprise on the album comes at the very end. ‘Amy’ features Armstrong plunking out a delicate ode to the then-recently deceased Amy Winehouse. A heartfelt and insightful track, ‘Amy’ shows that Armstrong could still craft genuinely great material in his third decade of songwriting.

¡Tré! – ‘Missing You’

There’s no real nice way to put it: ¡Tré! is a mess of an album. Sam Cooke songwriting credits and a titular pun referencing Tré Cool are the most memorable parts of the album, which is truly saying something considering how the album has 12 tracks on it. Nothing on ¡Tré! resembles anything close to a classic song, and it seemed as though the band packed all the leftover songs onto the final LP of the trilogy.

With that in mind, let’s pick out ‘Missing You’ as being the song on the album that most closely sounds like old-school Green Day. With Armstrong, Dirnt, Cool, and White all locked into a classic groove, ‘Missing You’ is probably the best track on ¡Tré!, even if it does have the unintended effect of making you want to revisit other, better Green Day albums.

Revolution Radio – ‘Still Breathing’

It seems like every band follows the same pattern when they reach a certain point: indifferently-received LPs need to be followed with a “back to basics” kind of LP. Revolution Radio was certainly that: 12 songs that all harken back to the glory days of Green Day. That’s nice for nostalgic die-hards, but it doesn’t do much in terms of return value.

‘Still Breathing’ feels like one of the only tracks that find Green Day reaching for something that lies slightly into the future. It’s also a hell of a pop song, thanks to the bevvy of songwriters that contributed to the track (including members of modern glam rock kings The Struts). That might cause loyalists to shudder, but those assistants were necessary to help prop Green Day back up.

Father of All Motherfuckers – ‘Sugar Youth’

We’re probably in the lowest and most confusing period in Green Day’s entire history. The only parallel to this moment in time is the post-Warning era, with the difference being that Warning was secretly a great album. Father of All Motherfuckers is not a secretly great album: it’s a clear and obviously obligatory album that got the band out of their contract with Reprise Records.

Even the album’s cover tries to put focus on an older, better studio album, American Idiot. Trying to find the best song on this album is a real slog, so let’s go with one of the shortest, ‘Sugar Youth’. The album’s actual shortest song, ‘Fire, Ready, Aim’, sucks pretty hard, but ‘Sugar Youth’ is easy and breezy enough not to annoy anyone too much. Where Green Day goes from here is anybody’s guess, but there truly is nowhere to go but up.

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