Because I heard the title track from Green Day’s new album somewhere and it stirred fond memories of seventh grade, I decided it should be one of the albums I bought with an iTunes gift certificate I got for my birthday. At first I was a little disappointed, because apart from the title track itself the album doesn’t sound much like the Green Day I remember from junior high; it has troubling overtones of lawnmower rock¹ that made me inclined to dislike it. But I’ve listened to the whole thing a couple times through now, and at least some of the songs have grown on me. Given that I was never an enormous Green Day fan to begin with, it’s probably unlikely that I’d be one now, but it’s not bad.

¹ Lawnmower rock (see also: pussy rock, wuss rock): generic rock with a whiney and/or angsty flavor; the kind of music that would not suffer if one were to replace all the lyrics with things like “Fuck you dad, I don’t want to mow the lawn todaaaaaaaay/No I’ll never let you take my car awaaaaaaaay.”