Green Day - Dookie (1LP RASPBERRY)
Green Day – Dookie is the album that transformed Green Day from underground punk favourites into one of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s. Released in 1994, their major-label debut took the speed and attitude of punk and combined it with enormous hooks, sharp songwriting and a brilliantly scrappy sense of humour.
Packed with songs that have become Green Day classics, including "Basket Case", "When I Come Around", "Longview", "Welcome to Paradise" and "She", Dookie barely wastes a second. Billie Joe Armstrong's lyrics deal with boredom, anxiety, relationships and youthful frustration, while Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool provide the frantic rhythm section that gives the album so much of its energy.
What really separates Dookie from countless other punk records is just how good the songs are. Beneath the distortion and deliberately rough edges are melodies that would work just as well on a great pop record, helping Green Day bring punk to an enormous new audience without completely sanding away the attitude that got them there in the first place.
More than three decades later, Dookie remains ridiculously enjoyable: fast, funny, loud and packed with instantly recognisable songs. It became one of the defining albums of the 1990s, helped kick-start a huge revival in punk-influenced rock and remains arguably the essential starting point for Green Day.