8/20/2012
 One thing will be almost completely missing from the three new albums that Green Day is releasing between now and January: politics. According to MTV News, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said that the band has "stepped away" from concept records with political messages on its upcoming releases. He explained, "It was time for us to step away (from political material), because we didn't want to come across as politicians. We're in a band first and foremost, and we wanted to have a good time making music. So it was kind of a way of us getting back to basics."
- The first of the three albums, Uno!, comes out on September 25th, with Dos! and Tre! to follow in November and January.
- Green Day's two previous efforts, 2004's American Idiot and 2009's 21st Century Breakdown, were both concept records with political messages, with American Idiot an explicit critique of the Bush Administration.
- Green Day was one of the first acts to speak out against the government at the time, and bassist Mike Dirnt told us a while back why he thought artists were so reluctant to do so: ["Maybe back then, a lot of it had to with people were afraid of -- you know, there's a comfortable zone. Maybe people aren't comfortable in their political views. They don't want it to become a debate every time they have an interview, or turn it into career suicide. But I've always been taught that there's no such thing as a stupid question, just a stupid answer."] SOUNDCUE (:15 OC: . . . a stupid answer.)
- Armstrong did admit that one song, "Kill The DJ," touches on the current political climate, saying, ""It's more (about) the static that's in the air . . . because you're just getting all this false information coming from all directions. And then there's sort of a decadent, party atmosphere that goes along with it, so there's that kind of static and noise that goes on."
- Green Day premiered the video for first single "Oh Love" last week and will make "Kill The DJ" the second single from Uno!.
SIDE NOTES
Green Day will release an eight-CD box set called The Studio Albums 1990 - 2009 on September 4th, consisting of all eight of the band's previous studio efforts, from its 1990 debut, 1,039/ Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, all the way through 2009's 21st Century Breakdown. The Best Buy exclusive will feature each album in an individual paper CD sleeve with original artwork, with all eight housed in a clamshell box.
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