Review Summary: Everyone's so full of piss and vinegar
It's tough to describe an enigma such as
Father of All Motherf**kers. After
Revolution Radio came out and ended up being a fine return to form, it was hard to imagine
Green Day making the same mistakes as they did with the trilogy (other than the lyrics), which according to a lot of people is exactly what
Father of All... does before amping it up to eleven and then flushing it down to the depths of hell itself. But perhaps it isn't the album making the dire mistakes it's being proclaimed to make, but perhaps the listener?
To put it simply,
Father of All Motherf**kers isn't meant to be taken seriously; it's first and foremost Green Day's attempt to escape their Warner contract (because who DOESN'T want out of that godforsaken company at this rate), but if you take it like the joke that it is, you'll actually get some enjoyment out of it. With such a completely ridiculous announcement AND marketing campaign, featuring such glorious lines such as "Me mike and Tre of the Green Day cut through the bulls**t. That's how it's always been for us. Everything else is fake. Frauds I tell ya!!" and promotional billboards declaring the album to be "100% pure uncut rock", do you actually think the band was expecting
anyone to take it at face value, as some work of musical genius? Simply put: no.
Looking at it musically, the best asset
Father of All... has is just
how damn catchy it is. I can't not smirk whenever hearing the opener/lead single/title track, "Fire, Ready, Aim", or "Sugar Youth", while "I Was A Teenage Teenager" is just some ridiculous nonsense that I can't help but chuckle at due to the absurdity of its sheer existence. "Stab You In The Heart" is a fun surf rock-esque jam, "Take The Money And Crawl" is more or less their final "f**k you" to Reprise, and closer "Graffitia" is a glimmer of hope for the future.
What
Father of All... fails at is the production. Green Day have never been the most well-produced band on Earth, but the production here is just pure and utter cringe through and through; Butch Walker continues to brickwall the hell out of everything he touches, sacrificing any semblance of at least something
half-decent for a brick of s**t that would make even
Californication and
What's The Story, Morning Glory? ashamed. Chris Dugan and Brian Lucey are all too happy to enable Walker's loudness fetish, and it results in nothing but a poor production job that adds more complication to a misunderstood album.
All in all,
Father of All... is hated for faults on what isn't the band's fault, but listeners: the ones who are taking it at face value and not as a lighthearted joke. If you sit back and just have fun, you'll find lots to like, but if you're looking for any semblance of a serious album, go find something else.
