10 Rock Collaborations That Made Absolutely No Sense

Ever since the release of Dookie, Green Day seemed to be in a little bit of a slump. Even though albums like Insomniac and Nimrod had their fair share of amazing songs on them, there was always those lingering pop punk fans who felt a bit cheated out of not getting a retread of something like Basket Case or Longview again. You think that's bad though...wait until Warning when everything was kicked into overdrive.

Being informed by more classic rock, much of this album is focused on folky styles of songwriting, as Billie Joe Armstrong pulls influences from heartland rock and even '60s rock and roll. You don't pull something like that off alone though, and Green Day actually managed to get a little bit of credibility by hiring session musician Benmont Tench to provide keyboards on the record.

Long before being a behind the scenes guy, Tench had always been a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with a rustic rock sound that works perfectly playing off of Armstrong's Beatles pastiches like Deadbeat Holiday and Hold On. As much as the core fanbase of the band might not have been all that down on a project like this, there's a good chance that the beginnings of Green Day's upswing starts right here rather than American Idiot.