Dookie

''Dookie'' is the third studio album by the American rock band Green Day, released on February 1, 1994, by Reprise Records. The band's first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo, it was recorded in 1993 at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. Written mostly by the singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, the album is largely based on his personal experiences and includes themes such as boredom, anxiety, relationships, and sexuality. It was promoted with four singles: " Longview", " Basket Case", a re-recorded version of " Welcome to Paradise" (which originally appeared on the band's second studio album, 1991's '' Kerplunk''), and " When I Come Around".

After several years of grunge's dominance in popular music, ''Dookie'' brought a livelier, more melodic rock sound to the mainstream and propelled Green Day to worldwide fame. Considered one of the defining albums of the 1990s and of punk rock in general, it was also pivotal in solidifying the genre's mainstream popularity. Its influence continued into the new millennium and beyond, being cited as an inspiration by many punk rock and pop-punk bands, as well as artists from other genres.

''Dookie'' received critical acclaim upon its release, although some early fans accused the band of being sellouts for leaving its independent label (Lookout! Records) and embracing a more polished sound. The record won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album at the 37th Annual Grammy Awards in 1995. It was a worldwide success, peaking at number two on the ''Billboard'' 200 in the United States and reaching top ten positions in several other countries. ''Dookie'' was later certified double diamond (20-times platinum) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it the band's best-selling album and one of the best-selling albums of all time. It has been labeled by critics and journalists as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s and one of the greatest punk rock and pop-punk albums of all time. ''Rolling Stone'' placed ''Dookie'' on all four iterations of its "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list, and at number 1 on its "The 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums" list in 2017. In 2024, the album was selected for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Background

With the success in the independent world of the band's first two albums, ''39/Smooth'' (1990) and '' Kerplunk'' (1991), which sold 30,000 units each, a number of major record labels became interested in Green Day. Among them were Sony, Warner Bros., Geffen and Interscope. Representatives of these labels attempted to entice the band to sign by inviting them for meals to discuss a deal, with one manager even inviting the group to Disneyland. The band declined these advances; Armstrong believed that the labels were more than likely looking for something that resembled a grunge band, namely "second- and third-rate Nirvanas and Soundgardens", and they did not want to conform to a label's vision. That changed when they met the producer and A&R representative Rob Cavallo of Reprise, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. The band played Beatles covers for him for 40 minutes, then Cavallo picked up his own guitar and jammed with them. They were impressed by his work with fellow Californian band the Muffs, and later remarked that Cavallo "was the only person we could really talk to and connect with".

Eventually, the band left their independent record label, Lookout! Records, on friendly terms. They signed a five-album deal with Reprise in April 1993. The deal secured Cavallo as the producer of the first record and allowed the band to retain the rights to its albums on Lookout!. Signing to a major label caused many of Green Day's original fans to label them sell-outs, including the influential punk fanzine '' Maximumrocknroll'' and the independent music club 924 Gilman Street. After Green Day's September 3 gig at 924 Gilman Street, the venue banned the group from entering or playing. They would not return to the venue until 2015, when they played a benefit concert there. Reflecting on this period in 1999, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told ''Spin'' magazine:: "I couldn't go back to the punk scene, whether we were the biggest success in the world or the biggest failure ..The only thing I could do was get on my bike and go forward."

Much of ''Dookie''s content was written by Armstrong, except "Emenius Sleepus", which was written by the bassist Mike Dirnt, and the hidden track, "All by Myself", which was written by Tré Cool.

Recording and production

Following the band's last Gilman Street performance, Green Day demoed the songs " She", "Sassafras Roots", "Pulling Teeth" and "F.O.D." on Armstrong's four-track tape recorder and sent it to Cavallo. After listening to it, Cavallo sensed that " ehad stumbled on something big." However, he recognized that the band members were struggling to play their best; he reasoned that they were anxious because the most time they had previously spent recording an album was three days while recording '' Kerplunk''. To lighten the mood, he invited them to a Mexican restaurant and bar down the street from Fantasy Studios, even though the drummer Tré Cool was not of legal drinking age at the time. Armstrong confirmed the band's anxiety in an interview years later, describing the group feeling "like little kids in a candy store" and fearing that the band would lose money on work being scrapped by the label for not meeting standards. Despite this, they focused on making the most of the new production resources at their disposal; unlike their previous albums where the band had to rush to complete them to save money, the band took their time to perfect the quality of their output. Armstrong noted that he learned "how to dial in good sounds, get the best guitar tones. I was able to take a little time doing vocals." With a larger budget, Armstrong began exploring different amplifiers in search of a thicker guitar tone. He eventually selected a 100-watt Marshall Plexi 1959SLP amplifier to use on the album, which he nicknamed "Pete". According to Armstrong, "We were just trying to go from loud to louder."

Recording took place over the course of three weeks at Fantasy, and the album was mixed twice by Cavallo and the producer Jerry Finn. Though the band took their time to make a quality product as a whole, Armstrong's vocals were still recorded very quickly; he recorded about 16 or 17 songs in two days, most of them in a single take. Armstrong said the band at first "wanted it to sound really dry, the same way the Sex Pistols record or the early Black Sabbath records sounded", but the band found the result of this approach to be an unsatisfactory original mix. Cavallo agreed, and it was remixed at Devonshire Sound Studios in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the remixing process, the band took to Music Grinder Studio in Los Angeles to re-record the tracks "Chump" and "Longview" as the original recordings had been "plagued by an inordinate amount of tape hiss". Armstrong later said of their studio experience, "Everything was already written, all we had to do was play it." Among the material recorded but not included on the album was "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", which would later be re-recorded for the band's 1997 album ''Nimrod'' and become a hit in its own right. The band also recorded new versions of the songs " Welcome to Paradise", "2000 Light Years Away" and "Christie Rd." from their second album ''Kerplunk'' and "409 in Your Coffeemaker" from their second EP, '' Slappy'', though only "Welcome to Paradise" would make it onto the final album.

Music and lyrics

Stylistically, the album has been categorized primarily as punk rock, but also as pop-punk and as a "power pop take" on skate punk. ''NME'' characterized the album's sound by "crashing drums, razor-wire guitars, nda double helping of fuck you attitude," and Arielle Gordon of ''Pitchfork'' stated that the album "made apathy sound apoplectic." Influences from the Ramones and the Sex Pistols were noted in Armstrong's guitar technique throughout the album; he recorded the album almost entirely with his Fernandes Stratocaster, which he named "Blue", and incorporated frequent major chords and palm muting. Armstrong achieved the album's loud, crunchy guitar sound with a 100-watt Marshall Plexi 1959SLP amplifier. Many of the album's tracks have brief runtimes; Fred Thomas of ''AllMusic'' noted, "the way the tracks fly by nervously in barrages of buzzing guitars and half-sung, half-sneered vocals from Billie Joe Armstrong intentionally aims to obscure how precise their arrangements are." Jason Chow of the ''National Post'' characterized the tracks themselves as "furious but sweet melodies." Additionally, bassist Mike Dirnt incorporated vocal harmonies that have drawn comparisons to Brill Building music.

Lyrically, the album is characterized by its " irreverent attitude," and touched upon various experiences of the band members and included subjects such as anxiety and panic attacks, masturbation, sexual orientation, boredom, self-deprecation, mass murder, divorce, domestic abuse, and ex-girlfriends. ''PopMatters'' summarized the album's theme as "a record that speaks of the frustrations, anxieties, and apathy of young people." Gordon assessed that the album "reached for humor to communicate helplessness," and joked: "For the downtrodden and the downwardly mobile, masturbating until you lose your mind can feel like rebellion, too."

Songs 1–7

''Dookie'' opens with "Burnout", a "speedy, antsy rocker" centered around a central character's feelings of general apathy toward life. The track has been described as a "disarmingly cheerful descent into total numbness." Armstrong wrote the song "Having a Blast" when he was in Cleveland in June 1992. The song revolves around a mentally ill character who plans to use explosives to kill himself and others. This was not regarded as a serious issue at the time, as the social climate could allow the song to be viewed as "mere cathartic fantasy", but later incidents such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre have made the song the "most uncomfortable track" on the album. On "Chump", Armstrong takes the perspective of someone who shows prejudice, insulting another person without actually knowing them. At the end of the song, it is revealed that the disliked person in question matches Armstrong's description of himself. "Chump" is also the first of three songs that allude to Amanda, a former girlfriend of Armstrong's. The album's first single, " Longview", had a signature bass line that Dirnt wrote while under the influence of LSD. In an interview with ''Guitar World'' in 2002, Armstrong described the character in the song as based on himself when he lived in Rodeo, California: "There was nothing to do there, and it was a real boring place." To entertain himself, the character does nothing but watch television, smoke marijuana, and masturbate, and has little motivation to change these habits despite tiring of the same cycle of behaviors.

" Welcome to Paradise", the third single from ''Dookie'', originally appeared on the band's second studio album, ''Kerplunk!''. Described as a "bleakly sardonic portrait of urban decay," the song was written about Armstrong's experiences living in bad neighborhoods around Oakland, California. "Pulling Teeth", one of the album's slower songs, uses dark humor about domestic violence. The typical victim and perpetrator are reversed; the male narrator is at the mercy of his female partner. The band's inspiration for this song came from a pillow fight between Dirnt and his girlfriend that ended with the bassist breaking his elbow. The second single, " Basket Case", which appeared on many singles charts worldwide, was also inspired by Armstrong's personal experiences. The song deals with Armstrong's anxiety attacks and feelings of "going crazy" before being diagnosed with a panic disorder. Using a palm mute, Armstrong is the only one who plays on the song until halfway through the song's first chorus, with the other instruments' arrival representing panic setting in. In the third verse, "Basket Case" mentions soliciting a male prostitute; Armstrong said, "I wanted to challenge myself and whoever the listener might be. It's also looking at the world and saying, 'It's not as black and white as you think. This isn't your grandfather's prostitute – or maybe it was.'" The music video was filmed in an abandoned mental institution. It is one of the band's most popular songs.

Songs 8–14

" She" was written about Amanda, who showed him a feminist poem entitled "She". In return, Armstrong wrote the lyrics of "She" and showed them to her. When Amanda broke up with Armstrong in early 1994 and moved to Ecuador to join the Peace Corps, Armstrong decided to put "She" on the album. Musically, "She" is similar to "Basket Case", although it is slightly faster, and draws inspiration from the Beatles. The song's beginnings mirror those of "Basket Case"; whereas Armstrong was the only one to play as "Basket Case" began, Armstrong's guitar does not enter until later in "She" while his bandmates provide a musical backdrop. The song tells the story of a young woman who feels trapped in an unsatisfactory life. Amanda is also referenced in the next track, "Sassafras Roots". Sonically closer to the band's material on ''Kerplunk!'', it is an unconventional love song that uses irony and sarcasm in an effort to avoid being direct, and centers on a couple wasting time together in a romantic relationship. The tenth track, " When I Come Around", was the album's final single. It was inspired by Adrienne Nesser, Armstrong's girlfriend and eventual wife. Following a dispute between the couple, Armstrong left Nesser to spend some time alone. Described as the closest thing to a ballad on the album, "When I Come Around" is driven by a recognizable two-bar, palm-muted guitar riff of four chords, while Dirnt's bass part stands out by adding additional pulled-off and hammered-on portions to the guitar's accompaniment. The song's lyrics highlight two meanings of its title: the narrator begins by talking to someone they believe they could address the needs of, having literally come around; in the second verse, the singer realizes they aren't what the other person needs, having "come around" figuratively.

The song "Coming Clean" deals with Armstrong's coming to terms with his bisexuality as a teenager. At the time, he was still looking for himself sexually and had no well-defined sexual orientation. In his interview with ''The Advocate'' magazine, he said that although he has never had a relationship with a man, his sexuality has been "something that comes up as a struggle in me". "Emenius Sleepus", written by Dirnt, is about two old friends who meet by chance, and the narrator realizes that they have both changed a lot as people. Played in a quick staccato-styled rhythm, Armstrong wrote the song "In the End" about his mother and stepfather, and the reproach Armstrong felt toward his mother for choosing his stepfather as a partner. "F.O.D.", an acronym for "Fuck Off and Die", begins calmly with Armstrong alone on acoustic guitar, before the band suddenly arrives in a louder, full-force fashion. The theme of the song centers around the singer's grudge for another individual, and wishing misfortune upon them.
A hidden track, "All By Myself", with vocals and guitar by Cool, plays after "F.O.D." ends, and is about masturbation.

Title and artwork

''Dookie'' is American slang for feces. It is a reference to the diarrhea—"liquid dookie"—that the band members suffered while eating spoiled food on tour. Initially, the band aimed to name the album ''Liquid Dookie'', but this was shortened to ''Dookie''. Asked in 2014 if the choice was a mistake in hindsight, Armstrong said it had been an impulsive "stoner thing": "We were smoking a lot of weed nd said'Hey, man, wouldn't it be funny if...'"

For its cover art, the band commissioned artist Richie Bucher, who created a cartoon-like work depicting bombs being dropped on people and buildings. Bucher says Armstrong only told him the album's title, so he worked around the theme of fecal matter. As a child, Bucher had associated feces with dogs and monkeys, both of which appear prominently on the album's cover.

The setting is a replica of Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue. In the center, there is an explosion with the band's name at the top. The cover depicts Patti Smith showing off her armpit as shown on the cover of her album ''Easter'' (1977), a shootout surrounding Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton, the woman on Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album, Angus Young of AC/DC, and the Sather Tower. Friends of the band members are among the foreground figures on whom dogs and monkeys throw their excrement. A dog pilots the plane that drops bombs with the words Dookie written on them, while the name of the group is written in brown in the center of the explosion. Oil refineries in Rodeo, California, can be seen in the distance.

Armstrong has since explained the meaning of the artwork:

When the trio went to Warner's offices in Los Angeles to discuss marketing for the album, label officials initially wanted the cover to feature a photograph of the comely young men, but the band refused. George Weiss, Warner's marketing director, noted that the band came from a distinctly different culture than most of their artists, and Green Day had gained the leverage with the label to insist on a different choice. The back cover on early prints of the CD featured a plush toy of Ernie from ''Sesame Street'', which was airbrushed out of later prints for fear of litigation; however, Canadian and European prints still feature Ernie on the back cover. Some rumors suggest that it was removed because it led parents to think that ''Dookie'' was a child's lullaby album or that the creators of ''Sesame Street'' had sued Green Day.

Release and promotion

While rehearsing in the house they rented in Berkeley at the end of 1993 in anticipation of a tour for ''Dookie'', the band was invited to the Warner offices in Los Angeles to discuss the marketing strategy around the album with Weiss. The latter expected to meet three scornful young men with reputations in punk music, when in reality the band members were intimidated to even be invited to the meeting. They discussed the first single, "Longview", as well as projected goals for the album's sales: Cavallo hoped to sell at least 200,000 units, while Cool looked higher toward 500,000. Demand was well underestimated; when ''Dookie'' was released on February 1, 1994, the album's first 9,000 produced copies quickly sold out. "Longview" was released as the album's lead single simultaneously with the album. Despite promising demand from the quick depletion of the album's initial supply, it initially resulted in modest total sales as strategies were adjusted to meet demand, and only after the music video for "Longview" debuted on MTV on February 22 did the album begin to attract stronger attention, first entering the ''Billboard 200'' rankings at number 127.

In March, the group made appearances on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', ''The Jon Stewart Show'' and ''120 Minutes'' on ''MTV''. Sales for ''Dookie'' rose greatly following these performances, peaking at number two on the ''Billboard'' 200 in the United States. The record became an international success as well; the album peaked in the top ten of the German, Finnish, Norwegian, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and Swiss charts, while it topped the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand charts. By June 14, ''Dookie'' was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having sold more than 500,000 copies in the United States. That month, an issue of ''Time'' hailed the album as a work creating an impact comparable to Nirvana's ''Nevermind'' (1991).

On August 1, "Basket Case" was released as the album's second single. The song's music video quickly became an ''MTV'' staple. The following month, "Longview" was nominated in three categories at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. Green Day performed the unreleased song "Armatage Shanks" at the ceremony, which would later appear on their following album ''Insomniac'' (1995), but did not win any of the categories which they were nominated for. In October, Warner proposed "Welcome to Paradise" to be the third single, noting potential to make good sales. However, Armstrong refused because the song evoked a part of his life and he did not feel capable of promoting it with a music video. The song was ultimately only broadcast on the radio domestically, being met with great success despite not being sold to the public. An exclusive United Kingdom single release for the song did proceed on October 17. Near the end of 1994, Don Pardo invited the band to perform on ''Saturday Night Live''.

Ahead of the 37th Annual Grammy Awards, "When I Come Around" was released to radio as the album's final single in December 1994. The band had been nominated in four Grammy Award categories: Best Alternative Music Album, Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal with "Basket Case", and Best Hard Rock Performance with "Longview". They won only the former of the categories. In the meantime, "When I Come Around" had been quickly climbing the charts; it held the top of the ''Billboard'' Modern Rock Chart for seven weeks and peaked at number six of the Hot 100 Airplay chart, becoming the band's most successful single from the album. Throughout the 1990s, ''Dookie'' continued to sell well, eventually receiving diamond certification from the RIAA in 1999, signifying ten million copies sold. By 2014, ''Dookie'' had sold over 20 million copies worldwide and remains the band's best-selling album. By 2024, the RIAA had certified it 20× platinum — double diamond — for twenty million copies sold in the United States alone.

Critical reception

''Dookie'' was released to critical acclaim. In early 1995, Jon Pareles'' wrote, "Punk turns into pop in fast, funny, catchy, high-powered songs about whining and channel-surfing; apathy has rarely sounded so passionate." ''Rolling Stone''s Paul Evans described Green Day as "convincing mainly because they've got punk's snotty anti-values down cold: blame, self-pity, arrogant self-hatred, humor, narcissism, fun". Jesse Raub, writing for ''Alternative Press'', praised "Burnout" for immediately opening with a "huge, polished production value without abandoning their scrappy, loose punk playing" which consistently shines through the rest of the album's tracks. In a 20th anniversary retrospective review for ''Billboard'', Chris Payne highlighted how Armstrong's "sugary, almost bubblegum choruses" were unique for punk at the time, and forcefully brought mainstream attention to punk rock music.

The ''Chicago Tribune''s Greg Kot was appreciative of the loudness and urgency in the album's sound, detecting influences from the Who and the Zombies. Mark Sutherland of ''NME'' showcased the record's "crashing drums" and "razor-wire guitars", concluding, "Being dumb has never been so much fun." A 2017 review from ''Pitchfork''s Marc Hogan summarized the album's material as "buzzing, hook-crammed tracks that acted like they didn't give a shit", but resounded so well with its audience because in truth "on a compositional and emotional level they were actually gravely serious," praising the album's outlandish artwork for helping ease the tense nature of the music. Robert Christgau, writing for ''The Village Voice'', opined that "punk lives, and these guys have the toons and sass to prove it to those who can live without," praising their themes of apathy, insanity, poverty, and "the un-American way".

Neil Strauss of ''The New York Times'', while complimentary of the album's overall quality, followed up Pareles' review by noting that ''Dookie''s pop sound only remotely resembled punk music. The band did not respond initially to these comments, but later claimed that they were "just trying to be themselves" and that "it's our band, we can do whatever we want". Dirnt claimed that the follow-up album, ''Insomniac'', one of the band's most aggressive albums lyrically and musically, was the band releasing their anger at all the criticism and distaste from critics and former fans. On the other hand, Thomas Nassiff at Fuse cited it as the most important pop-punk album.

Legacy and impact

Green Day's ''Dookie—''along with the Offspring's '' Smash'', released two months later—has been credited for helping bring punk rock back into mainstream music culture. ''NME'' argues, "''Dookie''s success proved to record label, film and TV xecutivesthat the teen rock revolution they had been witnessing for much of the early '90s didn't have to be all gloomy nihilism and angsty sonics. ''Dookie'' made rock fun again." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described ''Dookie'' as "a stellar piece of modern punk that many tried to emulate but nobody bettered". On the album's twentieth anniversary, ''The Daily Beast'' wrote that before its release "rock meant grunge: heavy, monotonic, humorless, and bleak", but the lighter tone of ''Dookie'' changed the public's general understanding of the term. It "made the entire pop-punk movement possible...it shaped the way people looked, dressed, danced, and spent their summers. '' Odeley'' is fantastic. So is ''OK Computer''. But neither record triggered the sort of commercial tsunami of compatriots and copycats that followed in ''Dookie''s wake." Berkeley-based Rancid was one of the first bands to capitalize on the hype created by Green Day and the Offspring with '' ...And Out Come the Wolves'', giving the new punk rock movement stability. In 2024, the album was selected for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Some critics claim that ''Dookie'' allowed numerous similar artists to enjoy long careers, including Rancid, New Found Glory, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Blink-182, Simple Plan, and Yellowcard. Good Charlotte guitarist Billy Martin (guitarist), Billy Martin, Something Corporate frontman Andrew McMahon, and Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley all claim stylistic influence from the album. ''NME'' believes Blink-182's ''Enema of the State'' (1999), Sum 41's ''All Killer No Filler'' (2001), My Chemical Romance's ''The Black Parade'' (2006), and even Lady Gaga's ''The Fame (album), The Fame'' (2008) could not have been created without ''Dookie''. Gaga has said that the album was the first she ever purchased. Jason Chow of the ''National Post'' assessed: "Punk purists still cringe at this groundbreaking record. But no one can deny that Green Day reinvigorated an old genre for a new generation with ''Dookie''."

In 2014, its twentieth anniversary, the album received several list accolades. In April 2014, ''Rolling Stone'' placed the album at No. 1 on its "1994: The 40 Best Records From Mainstream Alternative's Greatest Year" list, ahead of Nine Inch Nails' ''The Downward Spiral'' and Weezer's Weezer (Blue album), self-titled debut. A month later, ''Loudwire'' placed ''Dookie'' at No. 1 on its "10 Best Hard Rock Albums of 1994" list. ''Guitar World'' ranked ''Dookie'' at number thirteen in their list "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" that July. ''Rolling Stone'' cited it as one of the greatest punk rock albums of all time in 2016, and ''NME'' ranked it as the 18th-best album of 1994. In 2014, Emily Barker of ''NME'' wrote: "they don’t make ’em like this any more. Crack open a beer and come on in. Being dumb has never been so much fun." NME also listed "Welcome to Paradise" as a top-50 song for the year.

A 30th-anniversary deluxe edition of the album, released on September 29, 2023, includes outtakes, demos, and two live concert recordings. On October 9, 2024, the band announced ''Dookie Demastered'', a collaboration with the Los Angeles–based art studio BRAIN (studio), BRAIN where each song on the album was ported onto an "obscure, obsolete and otherwise inconvenient" format, such as a Phonograph cylinder, wax cylinder and a Teddy Ruxpin; those who won in a drawing would be eligible to purchase each item.

Accolades

''Dookie'' has appeared on many prominent "must have" lists compiled by the music media, including:

Live performances

In mid-1993, while recording and mixing the album, Green Day Opening act, opened for several Bad Religion concerts, allowing them to play new songs to a live audience. However, unlike their previous shows, the band was now playing before audiences of two to three thousand people. Two weeks after the release of ''Dookie'', the band embarked on an international tour. In the United States, they traveled between shows in a bookmobile belonging to Tré Cool's father. From late April to early June 1994, the band toured Europe, playing around 40 concerts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Sweden. The band's popularity was still rising slowly when they arrived in Europe; in Belgium, the audience numbered about 200 people. Cavallo recorded a few performances during the tour, to show the three young men their evolution on stage, and for use as B-sides on later releases.

After the European tour, Armstrong proposed to Nesser after four years of on-and-off relationships. Because the tour prevented them from properly planning their wedding and their honeymoon, the two married in a small ceremony on July 2, 1994, attended only by Green Day's two other members and their girlfriends. Adrienne discovered she was pregnant the next day, and Armstrong was upset about being unable to help and care for her. The trio then joined the second leg of Lollapalooza as the main attraction, and program directors set them to play the opening of the main stage. They missed a date of the traveling festival to perform on August 14 at Woodstock '94. This event, the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock, original 1969 festival in Saugerties, New York, saw a mud "fight" between the band and the crowd. Although organizers hoped that Green Day would be a big draw, their punk rock style stuck out at the event and the band's performance was poorly received by the crowd. When they opened their set with "Welcome to Paradise" after three days of rain, the audience was provoked by the irony and threw mud at them. Armstrong responded by taunting the crowd, and the event escalated into a mud fight among the audience and the band. During the fight, Dirnt was mistaken for a fan by a security guard, who tackled him and then threw him against a monitor, injuring his arm and breaking two of his teeth. Broadcast on pay-per-view to millions of people, this performance was widely noticed internationally and sales of the album rose sharply.

Further controversy followed the band only weeks later at a free concert in Boston. Alternative radio station WBWL (FM)##WFNX (1982–2012), WFNX hosted a free Green Day concert at the Hatch Memorial Shell concert venue on September 9, 1994. However, the promoters were accustomed to hosting reggae and acts of similar softness that drew smaller crowds, and were unprepared for the audience of 70,000 to 100,000 people. The fans in attendance were already chanting for Green Day during the show's opening act. After several calls for calm, including some from Armstrong, the group began their performance, but the singer let himself be carried away by the energy of the audience and jumped into the middle of it during "Longview", the seventh song of the set. The security forces, overwhelmed and fearing that the lighting fixtures would collapse, forcibly ended the concert by cutting off the power. A riot ensued and spilled into the streets, leading to numerous arrests and injuries. The Massachusetts State Police were called. Roughly 100 people were injured and 31 were arrested in the aftermath of the concert. In 2006, the ''The Phoenix (newspaper), Boston Phoenix'' would list the Green Day Hatch Shell "riot" concert as the sixth-greatest concert in Boston history.

When the band returned to Europe in October 1994, the venues in which they played were much larger, and the band was met with much more enthusiasm. Despite their new notoriety for live performances, the trio continued to sell tickets at affordable prices: $5 to $20 (equivalent to $ to $ in ). Warner proposed several groups to play as opening acts on this tour, but the band rejected these; instead, the band invited German punk band Die Toten Hosen and the American queercore group Pansy Division to join their shows. Following the European shows, the band returned home for one last show at the WHTZ, Z100 Acoustic Christmas at Madison Square Garden in New York. An AIDS benefit show, Armstrong performed the song " She" naked, using his guitar to cover himself.

In 2013, the band played ''Dookie'' in its entirety at some European dates as a celebration of the album's upcoming 20th anniversary. On October 19, 2023, at the Fremont Country Club in Las Vegas, ''Dookie'' was played in its entirety as part of the evening's 29-song set, including "All by Myself". The album was played in celebration of its upcoming 30th anniversary and announcement of the 2024 tour.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Billie Joe Armstrong, except where noted; all music composed by Green Day.

Personnel

Green Day
* Billie Joe Armstrong – lead vocals, guitar
* Mike Dirnt – bass, backing vocals
* Tré Cool – drums; guitar and lead vocals on "All by Myself"

Technical personnel
* Rob Cavallo, Green Day – producer, mixing
* Jerry Finn – mixing
* Neill King – engineer
* Casey McCrankin – engineer

Artwork
* Richie Bucher – cover artist
* Ken Schles – photography
* Pat Hynes – booklet artwork

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications and sales

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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Further reading

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External links

''Dookie''
at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)
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Dookie
' at Discogs

{{Authority control

1994 albums
Albums produced by Rob Cavallo
Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album
Green Day albums
Reprise Records albums
Skate punk albums
United States National Recording Registry recordings
United States National Recording Registry albums