10 Greatest Rock Anthems Of All Time
6. Longview - Green Day
At the start of the '90s, it felt like the artistic freedom of past decades had finally come back. Once Nirvana had wiped out the initial hair metal acts with Nevermind, the death of Kurt Cobain a few years later left much to be desired from the alternative community. On the other side of the pond though, there were a bunch of brats from the Bay Area who were about to take the world by storm.
Looking back on it, pretty much anything on Green Day's Dookie qualifies as classic material, and yet Longview occupies a bit of a unique space. I mean, how many rock songs are out there that are centered around boredom and contemplating the pros and cons of masturbation? That is...ones that pull it off this effectively? Yeah, on the whole there isn't too much that's insightful about this song, but the devil is in the details.
From the slinky bassline that Mike Dirnt plays to the way that everything explodes into the chorus, this is what the pop punk explosion sounded like in a nutshell, both harsh where it needed to be while also being playful in its song construction. Since rock has always been a young man's game, this was the handbook for every kid aspiring to be more than just a degenerate. Sure, these guys may have been punks also, but if they could make it, why can't you?