I can't claim to be a big Green Day fan, sure there are a few songs that I liked, mostly the hits. I owned Dookie on cassette, back when people still bought those things. I recently picked up the greatest hits collection. That pretty much does it for me and Green Day. Despite not being a fan, and I am sure some of you won't like this, I have decided to give this disk a shot anyway. The results aren't terribly pretty.
It starts bad and goes downhill from there. The first thing that greets you when you hit play is a splash screen that states that there is no original music by Green Day and that it is unauthorized and not endorsed by either the band or their record label. At this point I was tempted to just say forget it, but I stuck it out, maybe it would still be an interesting documentary. Next up was strike two, the title came up, but it wasn't Suburbia Bomb. The title that came up said Pogo Paradise, a quick search turns this up as a disk that originally came out a few years ago and wasn't terribly well received the first time around. To me, that is a little sneaky, trying to pass of something old as something new, the least they could have done is added more original content, perhaps get a few live performances or an actual interview with the band. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, strike two. Next up strike three.
Now strike three goes to the narrator, Sian Jones. Talk about ratcheting down the energy level in a documentary about a punk band, which is all about energy. She sounds like a middle aged British woman, not what you would expect to find when trying to learn of the background of your favorite band. She may be a very nice person, this is nothing against her personally, she was just a very poor choice to perform the narration.
This documentary is made up of a lot of talking heads. Lots of people who know, or knew, the band. Some of it is rumor, some may be fact, it's hard to say. As for actual Green Day content, they appear in a couple of very brief interview clips for a total of maybe 2 minutes. They even repeat the same clip at the beginning and the end!
Outside of the talking heads, there is a decent amount of old pictures of Green Day that are trotted out on the screen. Not to mention the generic lame knock off music filling in the gaps in and around the dull narration.
Bottomline. It doesn't matter if you are a fan or not, this disk is not worth your time. It is boring, not terribly informative, and doesn't have any Green Day music. Skip this, wait for something official from the band. The best thing about it is the title.
Not Recommended.
Also at Blogcritics.
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