10 Bands That Have Musical Alter Egos

Just as Green Day were about to put out their followup to 2000’s Warning, they were dealt a major setback when their master tapes were stolen. Though this turned out to be a blessing in disguise by pushing them to make American Idiot in its place, these brats weren’t looking to get right back to work either. They already had a bone to pick to one of the new signings from Europe that was causing quite a stir.

Around the same time that American Idiot was being ironed out, there was a strange band donned in masks that loved stirring up controversy with Green Day. And the joke would have actually been on us, since this “band” the Network was basically just Green Day in masks. To be fair, their album Money Money 2020 is far from anything that you would have expected out of a Green Day project, being much more in the vein of new wave acts like Devo.

Going through every single song though, Billie Joe’s approach to lyrics haven’t changed all that much, talking about different versions of adolescent angst except with the crunchy guitars being replaced by splashy keyboard sounds on almost every single cut. This may have worked as a decent palette cleanser, but the best was yet to come. These guys were on the verge of their next creative reinvention.