10 Legendary Rock Albums That Were Originally Very Different

As the '00s turned a corner, Green Day were faced with a bit of a dilemma. With the new school of pop punk coming in behind them and Warning not exactly setting the world on fire sales wise, they had the choice to either go back to the same tired pop punk sound that they had always been doing or make something that no one had ever heard before. While American Idiot managed to do both at the exact same time, Green Day's next blockbuster album was originally slated to be Dookie Part 2.

After spending the past few years stretching their muscles, the intended album Cigarettes and Valentines was looked at as the new angry phase of the band's career, taking the kind of snotty attitude found on their first blockbuster album and dialed in even further. Everything was ready to go...until someone walked out with the master tapes and never came back. It may have been back to the drawing board, but losing those tapes made the band seriously question if that really was the best they could do.

Billie Joe Armstrong thought he could aim higher, and taking jabs at the current political climate on the song American Idiot gave him an idea for the next album, planning an entire rock opera around angsty teenagers trying to make sense of what the world was going through at the time. Green Day may have just been trying to keep up with the times, but this album threw down the gauntlet for what pop punk could be. They may have grown up, but with time comes experience, and all those years honing their craft made for one of the definitive statements for what pop punk could mean.