10 Music Genre Switchups That Made Absolutely No Sense

For most pop punk fans, Green Day were really starting to go off the rails in the early '00s. Though that sounds a bit stupid these days, the years before American Idiot came out were tough for Billie Joe Armstrong, with Warning showing growth as a writer but without roping in the old pop punk community they got back on Dookie. Right before that all changed with their monumental rock opera though, they blew off steam by getting as far away from pure rock and roll as possible.

Regardless of Billie Joe's insistence that he hates The Network, this whole project came together for Green Day to mess around, and that probably involved listening to a loooot of Devo. Looking through most of this track listing, almost any of these songs could warrant a cowrite from Mark Mothersbaugh, having the same kind of energetic feeling of punk rock with robotic voices and some of the wildest lyrics you will ever hear.

Since they were in the process of making one of the most important albums of their career at this point, this is the kind of novelty that makes for a good companion piece once you've listened to American Idiot. While Green Day hinted at going back to their more traditional punk sound for the aborted album Cigarettes and Valentines, just imagine the fans reaction if this was the record that we got instead of American Idiot.