On April 20, Green Day publicist, Brian Bumberry, confirmed to Newsweek that the band is working on its 12th studio album. There had been a lot of speculation among fans after lead man Billie Joe Armstrong posted several pictures of him and the band in studio, but this is the first official confirmation of a new Green Day album.
Green Day has had a very storied career and is actually celebrating 30 years together. However, the veteran rock group is at a crossroads. Their last succession of trilogy albums back in 2012 were received with mixed reviews and did not preform well on the charts. The band faced a similar situation 16 years ago with their album Warning. The album was also met with mixed reviews and mediocre sales, and then four years later Green Day reinvented their selves and released the smash hit album American Idiot.
Green Day is in a similar position to reinvent their selves for a third time; however, it will be much harder to reignite their career like they did with American Idiot because of how much the music industry has changed. First of all, just the simple fact that everything is now digital and streaming majorly affects single/ album sales. When Dookie, their first major record debut, was released it sold over 15 million albums back in 1994. When American Idiot was released in 2004, the album sold five million copies in the US. Now with Spotify, Rhapsody, and Apple Music it’s going to be very hard to match those previous album sales.
Another reason why it will be hard for Green Day to become massively relevant again is simply the style of music that is popular in 2016. When the band achieved massive success in 2004, there were bands like Good Charlotte and Blink-182 releasing hits that were popular. It was all sort of a warm-up act for Green Day to release one of their best albums to date. However, now its acts like Taylor Swift, One Direction, and Beyoncé etc. that are popular today. Obviously, Green Day’s rock style of music is far different from the previously listed acts. Even bands like Fall Out Boy, who once said Green Day was one of their major influences, have not changed their style of music with more of a pop approach. This time, Green Day won’t have the comfort of other pop-punk bands warming up the masses.
Lastly, the current state of media itself will be another challenge Green Day faces in becoming popular. Everything is so quick and instant now, that it’s hard to get people to pay attention to something longer than a few weeks or months. Nowadays, things come and people will pay attention but then lose focus shortly after. It will be an extremely difficult challenge to get people interested in an album from a band that is three decades old, does not play the style of music that is popular today, and people who are interested will probably just illegally download the album anyway.
