10 Times Musicians Trolled Their Audience
3. Walking Contradiction - Green Day
After Green Day came off of their multiplatinum success Dookie, they were both elated and cynical at the same time. While they had achieved success that most other bands would have killed for, they were almost immediately ostracized from their punk rock stomping grounds for going mainstream. Instead of holding their anger inside, the band poured all of their pent-up aggression into their followup Insomniac.
Coming towards the tail end of the record, "Walking Contradiction" is the band's most scathing indictment of their detractors. With its casual use of oxymorons, the lyrics paint the song's character as a pathetic loser who insists on being right in every scenario even if it means compromising their goodwill.
At the time it was a clever way of Green Day answering their punk rock critics, but the lyrics seem more relevant now than ever.
The entire track reads like the mission statement for any troll for has ever picked a fight with someone on social media, given the stubborn tone of the lyrics and the more snide attitude of Billie Joe Armstrong's vocal performance. The band may have just been trying to jab back at their naysayers, but "Walking Contradiction" was the blueprint for what troll culture later became once the Internet blew up.