Covid Island Discs

Day 295: Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, Green Day

This is the first Green day song to make Covid Island Discs. I didn’t realise how long ago this band formed which was all the way back in 1987 while I was till just an undergraduate at the University of Sydney. This song was released in 2004 and was on their American Idiot album (interesting title!).

There is also some interesting history behind this album. This is taken from Wikipedia:

In the summer of 2003, the band went into a studio to write and record material for an album, tentatively titled Cigarettes and Valentines. After completing 20 tracks, the master recordings were stolen from the studio. Instead of re-recording the stolen tracks, the band decided to abandon the entire project and start over, considering the taken material to be unrepresentative of the band’s best work. It was then revealed that a band called The Network was signed to Armstrong’s record label Adeline Records with little fanfare and information. After the band, who concealed their identities with masks and costumes, released an album called Money Money 2020, it was rumored that The Network was a Green Day side project, due to the similarities in the bands’ sounds. However, these rumors were never addressed by the band or Adeline Records, except for a statement on the Adeline website discussing an ongoing dispute between the two bands. The bands “feuded” via press releases and statements from Armstrong. Several journalists openly referred to the group as a Green Day side project, although it was not confirmed as such until 2013.