Americans still think 'punk rock' was about the music, bless them

Of their many cultural quirks, Americans retain a slightly ridiculous and yet rather touching belief in the power of ‘punk rock’ (nobody in the UK ever calls it that, of course: it’s just ‘punk’).

Despite laying claim to the progenitors of the whole punk thing – the Stooges, the New York Dolls, the Ramones – Americans still don’t quite seem to understand it. They actually think it was about the music, bless them. More bafflingly, they seem to regard ‘punk rock’ as something that has enduring currency, rather than being a brief – though significant – cultural phenomenon of the mid-to-late 1970s that was more or less over before it began.

Americans still don’t seem to understand punk. They think it’s about the music, bless them

Which brings us to Green Day, an American ‘punk rock’ band that formed in California in the late 1980s and has been bashing away ever since, very successfully. They have sold somewhere in the region of 75 million records, something Sham 69 never managed. This week, Green Day release their 14th album. It’s a ‘punk rock’ record. The cover of Saviors tell us as much, revelling in its faux simplicity, the blocky, garish pink font framing a black and white photograph depicting street violence during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. We are, it seems, back in 1978.

The songs place great virtue in being punky – and not just punky, alas, but politically punky. ‘The American Dream is Killing Me’ is singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s comment on the state of post-Trump America. ‘People on the street, unemployed and obsolete,’ he sings in his snotty punk voice over stop-start guitars and a loping beat borrowed from ‘London Calling’. ‘Strange Days are Here to Stay’ offers similar insights.