•American•Indie

•Critical & Commercial

Success•‘indie’ describes the guitar based music genre, aspirations

and ideology•Loyal Fan Base

Scrutiny■ Green Day claim, and have claimed to be a punk band, much to the chagrin

of punk performers like John Lydon (ex Sex Pistols). In the same way that Joe Strummer from The Clash was described as the ‘radical chic’ of punk, Green Day have been under the same scrutiny throughout their whole career. A ‘love them or hate them’ approach defines audience with both homage and humour used to parody their reputation at the beginning of The Simpsons Movie with the band being sunk on a barge at the start of the Springfield Music Festival.

Ideological Punk Stereotype to Mainstream■ Formed in 1987, Green Day were initially anti establishment,

reflecting ideological punk stereotypes but over the years aligned themselves more with mainstream music culture.

■ The band have sold 75 million albums worldwide and have a reputation for hybridizing indie with mainstream rock.

■ Grammy Awards have followed them throughout their career with the band citing intertextual references as The Ramones, The Buzzocks and Sex Pistols with an expression of punk ideals at the heart of the band.

■ From an institutional perspective, their embracing of punk ideals is at odds with the fact that they are signed to the major record company, Warners. The fiercest criticism has come from the suggestion that they have sold out the ideals of punk in favour of commercial success.

Uses & Gratifications

■ The official fan site, offers the ability to interact with other fans of the band applying the personal relationships model of the Uses and Gratifications audience theory.

■ Notions of exclusivity are suggested by the ability to pre order from iTunes with other features promoting again a mythical communication with the band who are seen to be interested in every ‘individual’ fan, a common convention of the indie genre. 

■ www.greenday.com offers a record company maintained representation of the band that suggests higher production values and also foregrounds their iconic 2004 album, ‘American Idiot’. Again, the irony with this album was that it was critical of mainstream political culture but topped the album charts globally in 19 countries.

American Idiot■ The album cover of American Idiot

has rebellious connotations with a bloodied hand holding a grenade – in this respect anti establishment imagery is manifest. The hand grenade is being squeezed almost like a heart bleeding which could also suggest the song is about love and losing it however, it seems more obvious that it is indeed making a stand against society and America’s traditional values.

■ Dark colours are commonly used by the band to represent their genre but also to anchor key themes.

Politically Independent Representation■ Green Day remain keen to reinforce this politically independent

representation with press releases informing fans of what the band are doing like Billie Joe Armstrong appearing in the independent film Like Sunday, Like Rain.

■ Their perceived involvement in humanitarian aid and charity work anchors this carefully constructed image – Stokes Me September for example is a fundraising effort for the SIMA Humanitarian Fund dedicated to improving life, health and welfare. Key beneficiaries include Breast Cancer and Cystic Fibrosis.

■ However, Green Day now have the status as one of the most successful bands of all time – in summer 2013 at the Emirates Stadium in the UK the band sold 60,000 tickets while also headlining the Glastonbury Festival. The band and Warners has successfully of late marketed ‘American Idiot’ 10 years down the line as one of the most influential albums of all time but the ability to reinvent themselves over a 27 year career so far remains one of the hallmarks of their success.

■ Vocalist and guitarist Armstrong has publicly acknowledged their success and their status as a ‘big band’ but still has engineered events that perhaps remind audiences they have retained their individualism – in 2012 at the iHeartRadio music festival in Las Vegas, Armstrong and bassist Dirnt smashed their guitars on stage because they felt their time was being cut short.

Synergy■ Green Day have benefitted over the

years with an association with Kerrang! magazine as a form of synergy but also linking with younger audiences who are the main target audience of the publication and website.

■ They are consistently represented as artists that teenagers can relate to because their music is about experiences that this demographic can understand – Green Day have been compared to Blink-182, The Offspring, Good Charlotte and Simple Plan but retain an individualism that both attracts a pre existing target audience but one that also allows them to market to a new audience.

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