10 Perfect '90s Rock Songs That Everyone Forgets About

After the success of Dookie, Billie Joe Armstrong was adamant about not wanting to play three chord punk rock forever. Although Green Day's follow up album Insomniac had more of the crusty pop punk angst that everyone loved from them, Nimrod was a bit of a departure, featuring some of the wildest left turns in their catalog and more than a few head scratching moments from hardcore fans. In between the saccharine moments of Good Riddance though, Green Day turned in their pop punk credentials to go full on power pop.

Compared to the kind of bratty sounds of Basket Case and Longview from just a few years before, there isn't an ounce of cynicism in Worry Rock, sounding like a long lost Cheap Trick song that somehow found its way onto the final version of the record. As Billie talks about his struggles with encountering speed bumps in his relationship, the music behind him feels like something out of the early days of rock and roll, back when acts like Buddy Holly were mining traditional pop melodies with guitar as the main instrument.

Though this is nowhere near levels of American Idiot or anything, people are still coming around on the deeper cuts on Nimrod, as the band stretched their muscles into sounds that worked outside of their Gilman Street roots. It might not be as straight ahead as an album like Dookie, but you'll have fun listening to this because you can hear the band themselves having fun making it.