10 Musical Left Turns NOBODY Saw Coming

Green Day had been in one of their least popular points at the turn of the 2000s. Their album Warning had modest success, but nothing really outstanding. As they began regrouping to work on a follow-up, their master tapes were stolen from the studio.

So why am I talking about Green Day? Because The Network was a side project put together so the guys could blow off steam while they worked on new Green Day material.

This record feels like it was ripped straight out of the early 80's. The sound owes a lot of its melodies to early new wave and electronic music like Kraftwerk and Devo. The classic Green Day punch is still there, but the energy is much more manic than fun. The lyrics also have a tongue-in-cheek humor to them with surrealistic imagery and stoner humor.

With all the switch-ups this record has, I can completely understand why the guys decided to release this album under a different alias.

While tonally jarring when stacked up against the band's previous work, this album served as a good exercise for the band as this departure led them to come back with a vengeance on American Idiot a few months later.