Walking Contradiction

Punk bands were not supposed to be popular, which was the core contradiction for Green Day when they signed to a major label in 1993 and released the album Dookie the following year. They quickly leapfrogged "popular" and became crazy famous; the album sold over 10 million copies and made them fixtures on MTV. Green Day had released two independent albums by this point and had been playing small clubs in and around their home base of Berkeley, California, mostly the punk haven 924 Gilman Street. A typical fan is thrilled when a band she followed early on makes it big, but not all Green Day fans felt this way. Some in this insular punk rock community excoriated them for taking the record deal, feeling they were turning their backs on their biggest supporters. The band had no reservations, but dealt with the backlash nonetheless. In "Walking Contradiction," lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong goes head to head with these critics, rehashing the accusations against him ("My wallet's fat and so is my head... I'm a smart ass but I'm playing dumb") in a kind of parody of this misguided attitude.

Green Day didn't change their style or follow trends, which made it so surprising when they exploded in popularity. They were a bit put off by the magnitude of it, and were thankful when EDM replaced pop-punk as the hot new sound in the mid-'90s. The important thing for them was keeping their convictions, which they did with their sound and attitude - they weren't about to hire a DJ and do a remix of their hits. Still, their Insomniac album, which followed Dookie and included "Walking Contradiction," sold two million copies in America and earned significant airplay.

In America, Green Day didn't sell their songs as singles, but the songs they wanted to promote were pushed to radio and MTV. "Walking Contradiction" followed "Geek Stink Breath," "Stuck With Me" and "Brain Stew" in the promotional cycle for the Insomniac album, keeping them on the air through the summer of 1996, almost a year after the album was released in October 1995. Their next album, Nimrod, was issued in October 1997.