10 Lost Albums From Famous Rock Musicians
2. Cigarettes And Valentines - Green Day
Serendipity is defined as "the fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance". Or, in layman's terms, what happened to Green Day and their album, Cigarettes and Valentines.
The band were looking to get back in touch with their punk roots, after their previous two records, Nimrod and Warning, had drifted more into radio rock territory. Cigarettes and Valentines was heading that way, until the master tapes for the album were stolen from the studio in 2003.
Ironically, that's a pretty punk thing for someone to do.
Whilst they could have set about trying to re-record the same songs, Green Day weren't massively happy with what they'd done. So, they started over again, creating a brand new album from scratch.
What they started working on would eventually become another classic example of a rock opera - 2004's American Idiot.
Without the tape thief, whoever they were, Green Day's best known album and one of the defining pieces of 21st century rock music might never have existed. They deserve a reward! Well, after they've served some jail time.
The song Cigarettes and Valentines eventually got re-recorded and released in 2011.