So why is Green Day’s Uno! on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
When I throw on “Kill the DJ,” off of Uno!, I can’t help but think, “These Green Day guys have been around for so long by 2012, and they’re still crushing out pop punk smashers.” It really is astonishing.
For many years, I had a theory that Green Day remarkably got better and better with each subsequent album they produced. As these here best 1,000 albums rankings will reflect, I’ve evolved a bit along those lines, but a song like “Kill the DJ” makes me seriously step back and reassess.
As ESPN broadcasting legend Chris Berman might say: “This just in: it’s GOOD.”
Uno! overall has a back-to-basics flavor to it, which I’m sure was a welcome relief for the band after the massively ambitious 21st Century Breakdown (#561 of best 1,000 albums ever) and American Idiot (#… TBD) albums.
“Let Yourself Go” is a great example of how much fun the band can have when they get away from crafting ornate rock/punk operas.
“Oh Love,” the final track on the album, is a bit more elaborate than the rest, to very good effect. It’s a bit of a slower rocker and gradually builds to a wonderful crescendo, with classic Billie Joe Armstrong vocals with the line, “Tonight my heart’s on the loose.”
Pop culture stuff that’s somehow related to Green Day’s Uno!
Simply based on the song title, “Kill the DJ,” I immediately assumed that it was in some way a play off the famous refrain from The Smiths’ “Panic”:
Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ!
But my research could not confirm any such connection. “Panic” is easily a Top Three Smiths song for me, by the way, simply brilliant. I’m sure I’ll get into this more at some point, but also note that “Hang the DJ” forms the title of one of the better (and even surprisingly upbeat!) Black Mirror episodes.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Green Day’s Uno!
My brother, sister, and I very much enjoyed playing the card game called Uno when we were kids. My older brother Robert even masterminded a yearly tournament that involved playing to 1,000 points, which was pretty ambitious, I’d say (if not American Idiot ambitious).
Robert even made little medals each year out of construction paper to memorialize the tourney’s winner and posted them to a corkboard in the basement of our home in East Northport, New York.
Robert was always scrupulously fair when playing with his younger siblings. If he noticed that one of us was accidentally revealing our hand, he’d quickly flash his own cards to us and say, “You showed me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
To this day, I still feel a trace of excitement and trepidation at the notion of a Draw 4 Wild card being deployed.
Some stats & info about Green Day – Uno!
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Alternative Rock, Pop Punk, Punk Rock, SF Bay Area Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Uno! released? 2012
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #522 out of 1,000
Green Day’s Uno! on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Green Day’s Uno! that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
We are the vultures, the dirtiest kind. We’ll cut you once in your heart and your mind.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.