Jump to content
 

Cultural impact: Blink vs Green Day


theedge00

Cultural Impact  

47 members have voted

  1. 1. Which band made the bigger cultural impact?

    • Blink
      28
    • Green Day
      19


Recommended Posts

I think there is NO DOUBT that Green Day had more of a "cultural impact" overall, meaning their reach extended further into random everyday American life than Blink did. Dookie was absolutely meteoric in 1994. Every person in the country knows "Good Riddance," most people STILL hear it at their prom or graduation or whatever. American Idiot was a total sensation as well and made them arguably the biggest "modern rock" band of that era. After they came to my city on that tour EVERYBODY at school was wearing the tour tshirt. Blink was insanely popular and well known as well, but they never reached the "every suburban mom knows at least one song by Green Day" levels of cultural reach.......

giphy.gif

......I do think Blink's influence is underrated. As a 31 year old musician who has been playing in bands since I was 15, I can definitely say that in my experience and based on what I've witnessed over the years, WAY more people picked up instruments or started writing their own music based on Blink rather than Green Day. This could totally be unique to my generation, but it doesn't even really seem close when I think back to conversations I've had since middle school/high school. People liked and listened to Green Day, but they figured out how to play and write music by learning Blink songs.

Even with successful newer alt/indie/punk/rock bands who are my age or younger, more people seem to hold pre-breakup Blink up as an influence on their music than Green Day. Totally anecdotal, I know, but I just think it's a slightly different context when you're trying to think of "cultural impact."

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Champ182 said:

I think there is NO DOUBT that Green Day had more of a "cultural impact" overall, meaning their reach extended further into random everyday American life than Blink did. Dookie was absolutely meteoric in 1994.

but it doesn't even really seem close when I think back to conversations I've had since middle school/high school. People liked and listened to Green Day, but they figured out how to play and write music by learning Blink songs.

and the latter might be true, but it's the former stuff that something like the rock 'n' roll hall of fame cares about.

to put the dookie / smash era in context... dookie came out on february 1, 1994. they started their tour at the cattle club in sacramento on february 15, a shithole way smaller than SOMA. on august 14th of that same year, they were playing woodstock 94 with bands like metallica, nine-inch-nails, aerosmith, and the red hot chili peppers to an estimated crowd of 550,000. by NYE they had played madison square garden and dookie had sold almost four million copies.

small footnote: career worldwide sales stand at 50m for blink, 85m for green day.

i personally don't see blink's musical impact, but it was clearly there. because i stopped listening to the genre around when enema came out, and all the local punk bands i played in in the late 90s and early 00s thought blink was fucking stupid, they were irrelevant. then again, we were all in our mid-twenties. so it totally is, as you say, a generational thing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Green Day for sure. Everyone says they basically killed grunge, which was obviously huge. Then again with American Idiot. 

Just think how many times you've seen someone wearing one of those American Idiot grenade shirts versus blink shirts. I've never seen someone wearing a blink shirt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Champ182 said:

I think there is NO DOUBT that Green Day had more of a "cultural impact" overall, meaning their reach extended further into random everyday American life than Blink did. Dookie was absolutely meteoric in 1994. Every person in the country knows "Good Riddance," most people STILL hear it at their prom or graduation or whatever. American Idiot was a total sensation as well and made them arguably the biggest "modern rock" band of that era. After they came to my city on that tour EVERYBODY at school was wearing the tour tshirt. Blink was insanely popular and well known as well, but they never reached the "every suburban mom knows at least one song by Green Day" levels of cultural reach.......

giphy.gif

......I do think Blink's influence is underrated. As a 31 year old musician who has been playing in bands since I was 15, I can definitely say that in my experience and based on what I've witnessed over the years, WAY more people picked up instruments or started writing their own music based on Blink rather than Green Day. This could totally be unique to my generation, but it doesn't even really seem close when I think back to conversations I've had since middle school/high school. People liked and listened to Green Day, but they figured out how to play and write music by learning Blink songs.

Even with successful newer alt/indie/punk/rock bands who are my age or younger, more people seem to hold pre-breakup Blink up as an influence on their music than Green Day. Totally anecdotal, I know, but I just think it's a slightly different context when you're trying to think of "cultural impact."

Everyone I knew, without being major fans of either learned When I Come Around, then heard Dammit and learned that + WMAA, Adams Song, Anthem Pt 2 was a thing..

I've seen a few modern metal guitarist who cite learning Dammit as their first 'riff'.  It's no contest in that regard.

I also think blink was more popular to college kids than Green Day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Jan's Plan said:

2000s.  Kerplunk and Dookie probably filled it up in the 90s but come Enema that was a fraternities soundtrack.

that would have been my guess. "blink was more popular to college kids in the early 00s than green day." 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm very late to the party because I wasn't sure I could add anything more that hasn't being said, but we all know what Dookie means for the punk scene and what it set in motion.
Green Day helped paved the way for punk rock music to be popular in 1994, and then, 10 years later, they dropped another bomb which was a great exploration and reflection on the larger cultural impact of 9/11 without meaning to be.
At the time, American Idiot's message seemed simple, but it really captured the state of the world.
However, it's hard to argue against blink being one of the most influential bands ever.

Culturally, I guess you could say that Green Day had the biggest cultural impact and people know them more than blink + GD were trend setters, but I think blink, which would have never had the success they had without Green Day having paved the way, were more genre definers because their style became iconic, was copied by many bands and has influenced (and still influences) many more. 
 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is going to be a long post but bear with me so my choice makes sense to you while i also debunk some bs posted here

I'd say blink is the most influential band of the two. They have been a major influence for the current generation of emo rappers like Juice WRLD, lil peep, lil tracy Machine Gun Kelly, nothing.nowhere, Jumex, XXXTentacion etc; those guys are super big with the generation z. Let's not forget the major influence they had in the pop punk and post hardcore scene of the 2000's and in the first wave of emo, like c'mon guys are we going to ignore the fact that pretty much every pop punk band of the 2000's were literally trying to do Tom's voice? no one was doing the "billie joe" but a lot of bands of the time were doing the Tom Delonge for sure. Green Day was always a product, billie joe and tre literally lost weight so they could look nice on their MCR knock-off uniforms they were wearing during the AI era, they also went full political at the time because it was the thing at the time to shit on Bush, so if anything they did the "how's it going fellow kids" thing way before blink did which they did until the Cali era so don't go there. Why is Green Day the bigger band mainstream wise yet less influential than blink? easy, blink is a more honest band (until cali at least) when it comes to song writing, they have music people can relate to in their highschool days up until adulthood; partying, having fun with your friends, depression, break ups, having to face the hardships of adulthood and being clueless about it, marriage... they pretty much have a song or an album for almost every facet of life, they are relatable and have distinctive playing styles and voices. When it comes to skills billie is a better guitarrist than Tom BUT being more skilled doesn't make you a better musician, Tom is FAR more creative than billie is and can create absolute magic with his guitar, billie can fire up crowds, scream heeeyy hooo, play solos and run around the stage all he wants but he can't touch Tom as a musician. Mike and Mark are pretty even when it comes to skills, and Tre is light years away of being as good as Travis, no one thinks of him when they need a skilled drummer to play with them and is less skilled and creative than Travis.

Is Green Day bigger than blink? Sure, they're the bigger product but the thread is about which band made the most impact and to me the fact that blink has been able to influence at least 3 generations of music and being pretty much worshipped as "emo gods" by the current generation speaks volumes, they crossed genres and generations.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, asdf182 said:

Let's not forget the major influence they had in the pop punk and post hardcore scene of the 2000's and in the first wave of emo, like c'mon guys are we going to ignore the fact that pretty much every pop punk band of the 2000's were literally trying to do Tom's voice?

you've made me reconsider. perhaps blink is the more influential band. and their influence has been largely negative.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, daveyjones said:

you've made me reconsider. perhaps blink is the more influential band. and their influence has been largely negative.

I mean you can't blame blink for that. Many great bands have influenced  tons and tons of shitty bands, blink for sure influenced a lot bands i wish stayed in their garage but then there's the good bands like fall out boy, Paramore and PATD that released some absolute bangers back in the day. I know i made a big rant in my previous post mostly because a lot bs has been said in this thread and i had no time to quote them but i think i gave a good answer to the question with some points to back up my claims. Green Day is the bigger product indeed (keyword being product) but blink made the most impact and is far more influential which makes them the bigger and better band in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, asdf182 said:

I mean you can't blame blink for that. Many great bands have influenced  tons and tons of shitty bands, blink for sure influenced a lot bands i wish stayed in their garage but then there's the good bands like fall out boy, Paramore and PATD that released some absolute bangers back in the day. I know i made a big rant in my previous post mostly because a lot bs has been said in this thread and i had no time to quote them but i think i gave a good answer to the question with some points to back up my claims. Green Day is the bigger product indeed (keyword being product) but blink made the most impact and is far more influential which makes them the bigger and better band in my opinion.

What about all the bands GD influenced in the 90s or 80s even? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...