10 Perfect Rock Albums For Pop Fans

As the influx of new grunge bands started to get self destructive, there was always another side of that coin. In the midst of bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains reaching the top of the charts, the Bay Area punk scene was also finding its feet as well, with acts like Operation Ivy and the Offspring all cutting their teeth with songs that were a little more jagged than what the Seattlites were giving us. While Green Day may have been in the same camps as people like Operation Ivy, they had the kind of tunes that you could sing along with for days.

When jumping onto a major label, Dookie became one of the biggest punk albums to come out in the '90s, taking the aesthetic of a brat living in the suburbs trying to make sense of their life. Going through every single track on this album, you get just another facet of what that kind of teenage confusion sounds like, from talking about the pros and cons of masturbation on Longview to the feeling of dealing with anxiety on Basket Case.

Even though not every song is on the optimistic side, there's a little bit of f*cked up romanticism about the whole thing as well, like Billie Joe Armstrong finally make it on his own on Welcome to Paradise or trying to look for love in your new digs like the punk rock feminist in She. There was no sweeping statement that went along with this record in the beginning, but in between those grooves, Green Day hit on the sound of adolescence.