Review Summary: An infectious little punk debut that would show much warranted potential for the band.
Debut albums are very 50/50 when it comes to quality. Whereas bands like The Doors or R.E.M. absolutely nail it with their forever masterful debuts, bands like The Beach Boys or Radiohead had a pretty rocky start—though they’d both still prove to be legendary with time. This album doesn’t really fall into either category. Because this album isn’t good enough to be considered anything “amazing”, but it’s not bad enough to be considered anything less than a good time, nonetheless. But, considering the context surrounding the album, it’s almost incredible. That’s not to say it’s anything ground breaking, but it’s a debut album that shouldn’t be this good, all things considered.
Because, for an album written by adolescents, there’s really nothing on the album I’d call bad, as the songs here are surprisingly hooky and infectious, all with a decent amount of musical variety. Stylistically, the album is also very focused and satisfying from start to finish. Mix that with the excellent and raw composition (which includes a younger, high-pitched Billie Joe Armstrong), great production, and decent structuring, and what you’ve got is, as stated, way better than it has any right to be. It can be easy to pull this album apart in comparison to a lot of what they would release in the future, but this really does lay the groundwork for what would come, as most of the essentials are here. Hooky material with an infectious drive behind, all with fun power chords mixed with contemporary chords for variety to boot. It’s a very fun punk record that does its job and does it well for the most part.
However, that’s not to say the album is perfect. For one, the short length of the album. For a debut, I guess it’s fine, but there’s no way around the fact that the album is short. Almost too short, even. Only 10 songs here, and while that sounds like a decent length, the lack of much depth here makes it where the album feels a bit underwhelming. After “The Judge’s Daughter” finishes, you’ll want more, and while that sounds like a good thing, the album doesn’t quite feel like enough. Speaking of which, while the material is mostly good, it’s also very surface level, with themes that aren’t deep whatsoever. Mostly love songs here, and creative ways of how BJA will try to get with or get over a girl. Not without songs about smoking pot (“Green Day”) or wanting to be accepted (“Road to Acceptance”), of course. But the album, for all of its qualities, is pretty cheesy, and requires a specific mindset to fully enjoy. To be fair, the themes covered here makes sense, considering this album, again, came from the minds of adolescents. Overall, I just wish there was more to it.
Besides that, this is still one hell of a debut. Definitely not the best I’ve ever heard, but the fact that a group of high school students wrote and recorded a better album than a big number of other famous bands when they were just starting out is incredibly impressive. There might not be a lot behind it depth wise, but it’s still very memorable from start to finish, and one, I feel, gets way better as time goes on. While it would often be outshined by future releases, it’s still very infectious and raw, making for one smooth album that is more than 39 times better than it should be.
Still though, if I had to choose, I’d go with “1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours”, as that fixes the complaint of this album being a bit too short by including two decent EPs and “I Want To Be Alone”. That’s not to take away from this: the true debut album from Green Day.
