10 Albums That Changed Rock History

After April of 1994, rock and roll was seriously all out of fun times. Since Kurt Cobain's tragic passing, it felt like the future of rock died along with him, with everyone just struggling to pick up the pieces and trying to move on. Though most people went down the post grunge road, something a lot more exciting was going on down in California.

Being a mainstay of the underground punk movement, Green Day became global superstars off the back of Dookie, which was the shot in the arm that the world really needed. Here were three guys that had a cynical punk attitude, but with tunes that actually sounded like they could get played on the radio. For every song about being bored, there were amazing hooks like the bass breakdown of Welcome to Paradise or the midtempo crunch of When I Come Around.

While the guys in Green Day weren't aware of it, this would become the blueprint for the next wave of rock and roll, with everyone from Blink-182 to Sum 41 copying their formula in the early '00s, often to even more widespread acclaim. Outside of their own genre, even the guys in My Chemical Romance cited this as a turning point in their careers. Although this is still the height of '90s edginess, it's the best product of its time that the decade had to offer.