My friend is a huge Green Day fan. I've always respected them, but never bought one of their CDs. When Warning came out, I was at the local Sam Goody considering buying it, when he mentioned that Insomniac was the best Green Day album. Taking his word for it, I put down Warning and picked up Insomniac. Boy, am I glad he was there that day, because I love this CD, and from the sound of the reviews, Warning doesn't touch Insomniac.
This CD is just fantastic. Green Day is sort of the stereotypical punk band. Stereotypical in the fact that they are one of the original punk bands that really gained notoriety for being punk. Insomniac is the perfect punk CD in the sense that it blends the punk sound with lyrics that actually make sense.
One of the better known and expecting things about punk music is the nonsense lyrics at times. Blink 182 does a good job at that, as did No Use For A Name and 88 Finger Louie. Green Day's Insomniac, however, only slightly touches nonsense with Brat, a track about waiting for your parents to die to inherit everything instead of working for it, and Geek Stink Breath, which is basically about being a complete reject, but even then it's barely immature because it's so painfully true to many people.
The rest of Insomniac is pretty much either serious or just simply not-nonsense, in terms of https://lyrics. In fact, some songs, like Panic Song, touches on some rather serious subjects like the way the world is. While this is the norm for many punk bands now, back in the day, this was new ground just itching to be covered.
There's a plague inside of me
Eating at my disposition
Nothing's left
Torn out of reality
Into a state of no opinion
Limp with hate
-Panic Song
Green Day manages to cover everything a punk band is about with this album. Parents, girls, life in general, even insomnia (which I am a victim of quite often). This is often a staple of punk music. Singing about teenage life, or just immature life. It's one of the things I love about punk music, and since that's all Insomniac is, I love it. Just teenage life. Being pissed off at your parents, a girl, your friend, or the world. Struggling with life, wondering about things, or just plain not caring about consequences. Acting immature and just having fun. That's what punk music is about, and that's what Insomniac is about. Insomniac IS teenage angst. And that's what's so appealing about it.
And it isn't just the topics that make this CD so great. It's also the https://lyrics. The lyrics have matured, in a way, but still stayed punk. When No Use For A Name matured with More Betterness, their sound matured along with it. This isn't the case with Green Day, but it's for the best.
The lyrics on Insomniac don't just rhyme. They rhyme WELL. Stuff like ''Elected the rejected/I perfected the science of the idiot/No meaning...no healing/Self loathing freak and introverted deviot'' is something other punk bands just can't touch, and I love Green Day for that. It's a way they stand out. In a way, they're almost 'smart punk.' Even when they're being immature, their rhyming is smart.
I'm a snot nosed slob
Without a job
And I know I damn well should
Mom and Dad don't look so hot these days
But my future's looking good
-Brat
It works well and it's very easy on the ears, which is one of this CD's largest appeals: It's easy to listen to. When things rhyme well, it's quite pleasing to the ears, and Green Day accomplishes this in spades with Insomniac. This is one of the factors that keeps you coming back to a CD. Catchy lyrics, or at least lyrics that SOUND catchy. Green Day does both with this CD, and it just works amazingly well. In a way, this CD is almost poppy, the way it's lyrics and sound catch you. No matter when you're listening to it, you can just sort of move to the beat a little. And then there's points where you can't help but bang your head a little. A good example is a minute and 25 seconds into Bab's Uvula Who?; sometimes, you just can't control it, y'know?
Musically, on the other hand, Green Day hasn't progressed too much. The standard power chords for the most part, with the timely riffs for good measure. However, even this helps the CD, because the songs are all quite simple. Normally, this is a bad thing, but with Insomniac, it just works so fantastically WELL that you can't help but like it. This is one of the things about Insomniac I love. The whole CD is catchy in it's own right, and not one of the songs is bad.
Green Day doesn't depart from the power chord and pounding drum beats as much as in other records such as Warning. Brain Stew is really the only departure from this, with it's slower tone about either going crazy or having insomnia. It's hard to tell. However, even Brain Stew manages to let the guitar pick up a little at the end and sound more constant with the beat, instead of the one strum every other beat. It doesn't ruin the song, since the whole time, you're stuck in the finale's beat anyway.
As long as I'm talking about what's great about this CD, even the lineup is well done. Yes, that's right. I'm getting so desperate I'm talking about the lineup. Seriously, though. The CD opens with Armatage Shanks, which starts with a great drum fill, and goes into what is a great punk song, and a perfect start for this CD. Every song on this CD makes a great switch in terms of sound, and never sounds odd. The sound flows, and you never make a jump in sound so much that it startles you. It's almost like you're just listening to one long song, even though most of the tracks do fade out and have a pause between them. Brain Stew is a nice break from everything that lets your brain calm down a bit, only to jump into the constant strumming later on and back into the harder, faster punk. The CD ends with Walking Contradiction, which is the best song on the CD to end with. It sounds a bit like Armatage Shanks in the way of guitar chords, but it works just as well. Everything works and fits together on this CD, which makes it one of those albums you can just pop in and listen to straight through. This is good for me, since I hate jumping around tracks. Insomniac isn't the case here. I love every song on it.
With a great punk sound, constant beat, and fantastic lyrics, Insomniac is the perfect punk album for any fan of it. Hell, in my mind, it's one of the best CDs ever, period. It deserves a listen from everyone, especially fans of the genre.
