Still Flinging5 Out Of 5 Stars
Essentially, this is the album that finally made punk safe for the masses. Led by a powerhouse trio, a wickedly juvenile sense of humor and, frankly, a killer set of songs, "Dookie" became a multi-platinum success and made overnight stars out of Green Day. They worked the basic best of the punk playbook with quick bursts of melody, propulsive drumming (Tre Cool may be one of the most underrated drummers of modern times) and vocals that were both young man snotty ("Longview") and mature beyond the format ("When I Come Around"), they managed to cover all the bases while holding a punk cachet.
Now that "Dookie" is 20 years old, there's a certain nostalgia for the Green Day of yore, before the politics and rock opera days. Billie Jo is still a wild eyed kid in the midst of all the rock dreams, so he can get away with lines like "when master.....'s lost it's thrill" and the oddball bad joke hidden at the tail end of "F.O.D.". And while they were kind of advanced for they're ages, it would still be another three albums before they'd try something as mature as "Good Riddance/Time Of Your Life."
So revel in the golden age of 1990's power punk, before the dam burst and every dyed hair band with a melody had a hit. Green Day got there first, with one of the best opening lines of a punk song ever in "Do you have the time, to listen to me whine" just before a buzzsaw guitar starts tearing the joint apart ("Longview"). They knew they were climbing over the backs of their forebears - the liner art screams Ramones circa "Rocket To Russia" - but little did they know how much farther they'd raise the bar.
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