“The listening experience is unparalleled, sacrificing not only sonic quality, but also convenience, and occasionally entire verses.” Green Day releasing each track on Dookie on obscure and obsolete formats is the most brilliantly pointless, genius idea

09 Oct 2024, 18:23 · louder

By Paul Brannigan
published 9 October 2024

Want to own a single track from Green Day's Dookie on a toothbrush, mini disc, wax cylinder, teddy bear or Fisher Price record? Of course you do, but you have to earn it

(Image credit: Green Day)

Green Day have hit upon an inspired, and fabulously pointless, way of celebrating the 30th anniversary of their wildly successful Dookie album, by releasing each track on the album on an obscure, obsolete or frustratingly inconvenient format.

Ever wanted to own a copy of a deep cut from Dookie on a wax cylinder, a floppy disc, an 8-track cartridge or one of those embarrassing Big Mouth Billie Bass plaques last seen when clearing out your dead great-grandmother's house? Of course you haven't, that would be insane. But now, thanks to the Californian punk superstars teaming up with LA art studio BRAIN, that opportunity could be yours.

Explaining the concept on the Dookie Demastered website, the band say, “When an album hits a big milestone like its 30th anniversary, it gets the usual remasters on the usual formats. But Dookie isn't a usual album.

“Instead of smoothing out its edges and tweaking its dynamic ranges, this version of Dookie has been meticulously mangled to fit on formats with uncompromisingly low fidelity, from wax cylinders to answering machines to toothbrushes. The listening experience is unparalleled, sacrificing not only sonic quality, but also convenience, and occasionally entire verses.

“The result is Dookie Demastered: the album that exploded the format of punk rock, re-exploded onto 15 obscure, obsolete, and otherwise inconvenient formats, the way it was never meant to be heard.”

The website also carries two 'warnings', as follows:

UNFAITHFUL REPRODUCTIONS

Those deeply familiar with the originals may experience existential disquietude.

LOW FIDELITY AUDIO

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Extended listening has been known to provoke rage-nausea in audiophiles

With that in mind, check out the demonstration video below, at your own risk.

Introducing Dookie Demastered - YouTube

Watch On

Each of these individually reformatted tracks are available in very limited editions on the website. Oh, and there's a further twist: in order to have a chance to buy a song, you have to submit a drawing of the format you wish to purchase.

As Spinal Tap once noted, there's such a fine line between stupid and clever, and Green Day have absolutely nailed it here.

Expect achingly pretentious articles about Dookie Demastered being a subversive and provocative commentary on capitalism, art, and punk rock's capacity to transcend generational shifts in the consumption of music coming to a broadsheet near you very, very soon.

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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