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Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Paul McCartney to play coronavirus benefit

One World: Together at Home, streamed live on 18 April, will support UN response fund

Lady Gaga is to curate One World: Together at Home, a live-streamed and televised benefit concert in support of the World Health Organizations Covid-19 solidarity response fund and in celebration of health workers around the world.

The lineup includes Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, Lizzo, J Balvin, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Alanis Morissette, Burna Boy, Andrea Bocelli, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Elton John, John Legend, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban and Lang Lang.

The US talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert will host the event, which broadcasts live across the US television networks ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as being streamed online, at 8pm EST on 18 April.

BBC One will show an adapted version of the concert on 19 April, including exclusive performances from UK artists and interviews with frontline health workers. The details of the broadcast are yet to be announced.

Other celebrities expected to appear include David Beckham, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Kerry Washington, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Shah Rukh Khan and Sesame Street cast members.

The WHO and the social action platform Global Citizen have partnered to produce the event. The latters Together at Home series, launched last month, has featured performances from artists in isolation including Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello and Rufus Wainwright.

In a WHO press conference, Lady Gaga said she had helped to raise $35m (28m) for Global Citizen in the past week. She clarified that One World was not a fundraising telethon and would focus on entertainment and messages of solidarity, with philanthropists and businesses urged to donate to the Covid-19 solidarity response fund ahead of the event.

The WHOs general director, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said:We may have to be apart physically for a little while, but we can still come together virtually to enjoy great music. The One World: Together at Home concert represents a powerful show of solidarity against a common threat.

This article was amended on 6 April 2020. Lady Gaga stated that philanthropists and businesses were being urged to donate to the organisation, rather than fans as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/06/lady-gaga-billie-eilish-and-paul-mccartney-to-play-coronavirus-benefit

Green Day: ‘Rock’n’roll helps you dance through the apocalypse’

Can the worlds biggest punk band capture the zeitgeist on their new album like American Idiot once did? They talk about staying positive in the age of Trump and how people have forgotten to love each other

Green Day are in their modest rehearsal space in their hometown of Oakland, California, a little haven in a country on the turn. The trio of 47-year-olds still the worlds biggest punk band are posing for photos with singer-guitarist-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrongs prized Triumph motorcycle. Then someone remembers that the bands forthcoming Hella Mega Tour, alongside fellow alt-rock survivors Fall Out Boy and Weezer, is sponsored by Harley-Davidson. The Triumph is put back under its protective sheet.

Welcome to Trumps America, sighs bassist Mike Dirnt when I tell him of my journey via San Francisco, where I was shocked to see so much desperate homelessness. A place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sadly, I dont think weve seen anything yet. The band own a number of Oakland businesses its important for us to do what we can to lift up our local area, Dirnt says while Armstrong still goes on protests and attends local punk shows.

Armstrong is a fan of new bands such as ShitKid, the Chats and White Reaper, though is often confused by what he sees. Ill see kids wearing leather jackets and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. How did that happen? Recently, he attended a show only to be confronted by a young punk with giant liberty-spiked hair, looking like hed just walked out of a squat, asking for a selfie on a brand-new iPhone. Its cool and its weird, he laughs. Im just excited people are still doing cool shit.

Green Days new album is titled Father of All Motherfuckers and yet, surprisingly for a band best known for delivering 2004s George Bush-baiting rock opera American Idiot, they say Donald Trump had little influence on the new record. At the same time, they insist it is political.

Its all there in the songs, Armstrong says. Im singing about looking out for the jingoes and heathens or another black kid shot in town. Theres a lyric about bulletproof backpacks designed as protection during school shootings, one of the most absurd ideas Ive ever heard. But Armstrong doesnt want to be on the nose. Everything that is happening in the world is right there on Twitter. Its so confusing and its so depressing. I really wanted to create some kind of escape for people; I didnt want to be so obvious. Satirical punk site The Hard Times wrote a story the day of Trumps inauguration titled Future Green Day Concept Album Sworn Into Office. It was funny, but I didnt want us to do that. It wasnt where our heads were at at all. Where were your heads at? I was listening to Little Richard.

He continues: Its not that Im ignoring it, its just that the current political climate is something I just cant draw any inspiration from. Ive got tons of feelings about it. I think Trump is a piece of shit. I think [Senate majority leader] Mitch McConnell is pure evil. All they care about is looking after the rich and they dont care about the common people. But I find no inspiration there. Its so depressing. Its hard to dance when you cant get out of bed.

And the world has become so divisive, says drummer and band goof Tr Cool. We wanted to try to bring people together. Its become something of a far-out concept to love each other!

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Green Day on stage, 1997. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc

This year the band will turn 34. No punk band has made it this far. The Sex Pistols lasted three years, the Clash 10, the Ramones 22. Green Day are writing the blueprint while living it, so it is no surprise that they have sometimes made mistakes. Last year Armstrong duetted with Morrissey on his covers album California Son a terrible look in the wake of Morrisseys vocal support for far-right organisations and individuals.

I wasnt aware until the song came out, says Armstrong. We do the song, and he was very lovely, and then the song comes out and a lot of Brits were like: what the hell are you doing? I really did not have a clue Bewitched by the singers status as an 80s indie godhead, he simply failed in his due diligence. Cool pipes up, giggling: Hey, weve all got our Ted Nugents, right? a reference to the US rocker and gun enthusiast.

Green Day have endured major wobbles and are now in uncharted territory, as Armstrong puts it. People get over their high school bands. They dont go on to spend every day in their orbit for the next 20 years.

After two records on the late, great East Bay punk imprint Lookout!, in 1994 the young band signed with major label Reprise. The punk scene was aghast. 924 Gilman Street, the puritanical Berkeley-based all-ages headquarters of said scene banned the group from performing. Green Day released Dookie in February of that year and it sold 20m copies. They wouldnt return to play Gilman Street until 2015.

Old friends and fellow scenesters might not have wanted to talk to them any more, but everyone else did. Along with Smash, the third album by fellow Californians the Offspring (at 11m sales, the biggest-selling record on an independent label ever) and the rise to prominence of the Berkeley band Rancid, Dookie spearheaded an interest in American punk rock not seen since the birth of the New York CBGB scene 20 years earlier but with the sales to match the cultural impact.

We were always thinking about legacy, Cool says. We never wanted songs to sound like wed relied too much on whatever recording techniques were in vogue. We knew we were in this for the long haul.

Then came, if not decline, then some cooling off. The excellent Insomniac arrived in 1995 and struggled on account of not being Dookie. Nimrod followed in 1997; another strong collection of songs that became most notable for featuring a coda, the purely acoustic Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), that suggested there might be more to Armstrongs songwriting than three chords and fuzz. The song soundtracked the Seinfeld finale and became a hit at US high school proms, its melancholy dovetailing with events that marked a passing of time. And yet by 2000s Warning, the mall had been relinquished to the nu-metal kids. Warning became the first release of Green Days major-label career not to go multi-platinum. They wouldnt release an album for another four years.

I find it hard between records thinking what Im going to write about, Armstrong says. I get a lot of self-doubt. I dont think Ive ever realistically thought the band might be done, but I have questioned whether I could do it any more.

Green Day re-emerged amid war in the Middle East under Bush. Young people who might once have been fans were returning in body bags. Sieg heil to the President Gasman, Armstrong sang on Holiday from the album American Idiot, and if punks werent supposed to sign to major labels, they certainly werent supposed to release double albums that became Broadway musicals.

It sent them stratospheric and the weight of expectation since has never truly lifted: 2009s 21st Century Breakdown felt ordinary in the shadow of its predecessor; the release of three albums in a year 2012s Uno!, Dos! and Tr! favoured quantity over quality. An ill-fated festival appearance saw Armstrong, his set about to be cut short, destroy his guitar and rant: Im not Justin Bieber! He subsequently went into rehab for the abuse of alcohol and prescription pills.

Armstrong
Armstrong playing live, 2017. Photograph: Ferdy Damman/EPA

The band slunk into another period of near-irrelevance. They had emerged from the previous one with a genre-defying, generation-defining reboot this time all they had was a good record, 2016s Revolution Radio. Few bands harness the zeitgeist once, let alone twice. Is Father of All Motherfuckers that third moment? No, but it is the closest they have come since American Idiot. At 26min 16sec, it is their shortest album, featuring a collection of songs as fast and furious as any in their discography. It sounds as if they are having fun for the first time in years, without trying too hard.

Armstrong says it is an homage to the roots of rocknroll music, the music that inspired us to do this. That doesnt just mean punk rock. Its Martha and the Vandellas and Mott the Hoople. Old bubblegum music like the Archies. Powerpop. Garage music Playing Motown through Green Day, so to speak.

You might read the fizzing Father of All Motherfuckers as Green Day saying they are not done yet. Ask them if their forthcoming triple-header tour is an attempt to halt a downturn in the bands fortunes and Armstrong will laugh and say, in reference to 80s-themed package tours: There are many differences between Green Day and Kajagoogoo Were going to keep making records that matter. I always want whatever we do to feel like the first time we played at Gilman, or the first time we made a rock opera.

By embracing the bands love of rocknroll, Green Day are also trying to reclaim something at their nations core. Instead of an overt appearance from Trump in the lyrics, there is positivity and make-do spirit; it feels like a record about a beloved US, not the US that presently exists. I think good rocknroll has always had this ability to be transcendent, says Dirnt. A song might be about losing your gal or whatever other misfortune has come your way but the best stuff takes your hand and helps you dance through the apocalypse. Id like to think thats what were trying to do.

Rock as an act of resistance, I offer. Oh yeah, they all chime. I like that!

Father of All Motherfuckers is out on Reprise.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/07/green-day-rocknroll-helps-you-dance-through-the-apocalypse

Green Day: Father of All Motherfuckers review apolitical angst with aplomb

(Warner)

Given that George W Bushs presidency so enraged Green Day they recorded 2004s American Idiot in reaction, one could be forgiven for thinking that Father of All Motherfuckers might be a nod to the Trump era. Yet their 13th album is startlingly apolitical, more concerned with youthful angst and romance or, as frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has said, the lifestyle of not giving a fuck. Which is all very well, but there is something wearying about hearing a 47-yearold man singing the none-more-tautologous I Was a Teenage Teenager.

Its a similarly counterintuitive picture musically. There are nods to contemporary sensibilities, with a slick sheen of guitar effects courtesy of producer Butch Walker, whose CV includes work with Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen, but these are cosmetic touches. In fact, the roots of most of these songs are in rudimentary rocknroll. Stab You in the Heart steals shamelessly from Chan Romeros Hippy Hippy Shake, while Fire, Ready, Aim sounds uncannily like Nuggets throwbacks the Hives. Meanwhile, Oh Yeah! deploys chanted backing vocals that havent been in vogue since the Glitter Bands heyday. But Green Day deliver everything with such panache that the songs limitations dont really matter, especially when they manage to make tired old tropes seem fresh, as on the swooning brilliance of Take the Money and Crawl and Meet Me on the Roof.

Watch the video for Green Days Father of All Motherfuckers.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/09/green-day-father-of-all-motherfuckers-review

‘No Fascist USA!’: how hardcore punk fuels the Antifa movement

The anti-fascist movement draws on punks political awareness and network for activism and right now may be its most crucial moment

No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!

When Green Day chanted the repurposed lyrics from Texan punk trailblazers MDCs 1981 song Born to Die during the 2016 American Music Awards, it gave the burgeoning anti-Trump, anti-fascist movement the slogan it needed and it would soon appear on placards, T-shirts and be chanted by protesters in their thousands in months to come.

It was a tiny piece of punk history writ large on American cultural life but it only gave the merest hint of US hardcore punks influence on the current political landscape.

As political commentators struggle to nail down the exact nature of Antifas masked legions, theyve overlooked one thing: Antifa has been critically influenced by hardcore punk for nearly four decades.

From on the collectivist principles of anarchist punk bands such as Crass and Conflict, the political outrage of groups such as the Dead Kennedys, MDC and Discharge, Antifa draws on decades of protest, self-protection and informal networks under the auspices of a musical movement.

Mark Bray, author of The Antifa Handbook, says that in many cases, the North American modern Antifa movement grew up as a way to defend the punk scene from the neo-Nazi skinhead movement, and the founders of the original Anti-Racist Action network in North America were anti-racist skinheads. The fascist/anti-fascist struggle was essentially a fight for control of the punk scene [during the 1980s], and that was true across of much of north America and in parts of Europe in this era.

Theres a huge overlap between radical left politics and the punk scene, and theres a stereotype about dirty anarchists and punks, which is an oversimplification but grounded in a certain amount of truth.

Drawing influence from anti-fascist groups in 1930s Germany, the UK-based Anti-Fascist Action formed in the late 70s in reaction the growing popularity of rightwing political parties such as the National Front and the British Movement. They would shut down extreme-right meetings at every opportunity, whether it be a march or a gathering in a room above a pub. Inspired by this, anti-racist skinheads in Minneapolis formed Anti-Racist Action, which soon gained traction in punk scenes across the US. Meanwhile, in New York, a movement called Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice sprung up.

The term Antifa was adopted by German antifascists in the 80s, accompanied by the twin-flag logo, which then spread around Europe, and finally pitched up in the US after being adopted by an anarchist collective in Portland, Oregon.

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Singer Thomas Barnett of Strike Anywhere during a 2009 concert in Berlin. Composite: Jakubaszek/Getty Images

For Thomas Barnett, singer with popular hardcore punk band Strike Anywhere, his punk ethics and the direct-action philosophy of Antifa go hand in hand, and, with Trumps presidency emboldening the extreme right, the stakes couldnt be higher: This isnt just a raft of right-wing ideas this is actual hate and violence, and the destruction of entire sections of humanity. Of course, I dont believe in the false equivalence [between Antifa and the alt-right]. I think anti-fascists pre-emptive street violence against Nazis is righteous and important.

Many adopt direct-action tactics, whether it be the recent Antifa protests across the US, the black-block tactics employed during the WTO and G7 protests around the world, or even the decision made by Brace Belden to leave California to join the YPG, the far-left Kurdish guerrilla group battling Isis.

Punk itself wasnt a direct influence on my joining a guerrilla group, of course, but punk did help to cement my radical politics. Being in a community with a certain degree of consciousness and solidarity between people helped immensely in that regard, says Belden.

Bands, record labels, zine writers and venues around the world have co-operated to create a network that exists entirely outside of the mainstream, providing an off-grid template for Antifa activists to draw from. In America, there is Appalachian Terror Unit, a young band with heavy Antifa leanings from the Trump heartland of West Virginia. In Oakland, Antifa-related punk/oi! band Hard Left have taken part in benefit shows for protesters involved in the events at Charlottesville. In Texas, Antifa are organizing community relief efforts for victims of the Houston floods.

Theres definitely an overlap between the leaderless politics and the DIY ethos and the notion that if theres a problem in our punk scene, were not going to be able to count on the mainstream to necessarily give a shit, explains Bray.

Strike Anywhere singer Barnett says: Its also about community self-defence. The punk experience is like the flow of water. You can put up dams, you can run it underground it will still get through. It also carries on the folk tradition that was speaking truth to power before there was even electric power.

If there was ever a person unafraid to speak truth to power, it would be Jello Biafra, former singer of the Dead Kennedys and the man responsible for their 1981 call-to-arms Nazi Punks Fuck Off. So it might come as a surprise that he is withering in his criticism of Antifas actions in recent months.

Im not down with confronting [the extreme rights] provocations of violence with actual violence. I mean, self-defence is one thing, but going to a Trumpist rally with the express purpose of beating up fascists what does that accomplish? Whos the fascist now? It plays right into their hands, he says.

More than ever, we have to keep our heads right now. And I am all about freedom of speech, but I think protesting these people non-violently is the way to go, because it lets the targets of the fascist speakers know theyre not alone and lets the fascists who show up know that theres an awful lot of people who are not down with them, and a chorus of raised middle fingers is better than showing up with some kind of a weapon. Escalating the violence is not the way to go.

With his current band, the Guantanamo School of Medicine, he has updated his 1981 song and called it Nazi Trumps Fuck Off, but it comes with a caveat: Trump is the target, not his supporters.

I usually talk about the song on stage for a while before we play it, pointing out that almost everybody in the audience, especially if were playing in Texas or Southern California, know people in their family, close friends, at school or work, whatever, who think that Trump is really cool. And I point out that the last thing we should do is to dismiss these people as rednecks or stupid or Im not going being your friend anymore, fuck you thats not going to persuade anybody of anything and it helps Trump divide the country. My point is that you dont do that, you sit down and talk to somebody, not blog in an echo chamber. It might be stomach-churning, but you might plant a seed, and if someone wakes up three weeks, three months, three years later and thinks, Wow, that person that called me on my bigotry was right. All this racist, anti-immigrant fascism isnt getting us anywhere. I dont want any part of it anymore.

Author and punk historian Jon Savage, a champion of the Dead Kennedys during his stint as a music journalist in the 70s, isnt so sure: Its very idealistic and very laudable, but its like arguing with Brexiters over here (in the UK). Youre not going to get any change out of that. There is a proportion of people who can discuss things in a rational way, but here youre talking about core beliefs and wishes and feelings, and these are irrational, and they are even less rational when they are tested against reality.

For Savage, Antifas direct action tactics are as legitimate a tool as Biafras more measured approach: If you dont protest the way things are, then nothing is going to change. Youre reacting to fascism and entropy. You need a variety of approaches, and in politics I wouldnt discount any approach. Its probably useful to have sensible people because they can say, Well, look what happens when you dont listen to me and see what the nutters are going to do.

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Klaus Fluoride and Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys perform at The Peoples Temple in 1978 in San Francisco, California. Composite: Richard McCaffrey/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

For Barnett, even the current terminology is under debate. Calling it Antifa is like calling it this weird exotic cult, instead of calling it everyday life. Every aspect of media coverage of it is insidious, turning public opinion against us, making us a violent spectacle thats both something terrible and un-American, when this is the fucking Boston Tea Party, he says. If people want to talk about how the heritage of American culture and our patriotic destiny fits in [to anti-fascism] its basic math to me, and to many, many others.

Biafra and Strike Anywheres Thomas Barnett at least find some accord on the rebranding of the right, however. You know what they called the alt-right two years ago? Neo-fucking-Nazis! says Biafra. Now its alt-right, like alt-country or alternative pop music.

Barnett concurs: They dont get to be alt-right. They just get to be digital-age Nazis, or white supremacists or terrorists. And thats what [the media] are doing to anti-fascist action.

Regardless, Barnett says the antifascist movement isnt taking anything for granted. These rallies, whatever the next one is, whatever form it takes, are Trojan-horse events to invite and welcome white terrorist groups, and are just platforms for them to go into communities to hurt and intimidate people. And thats what anti-fascist action has always known, and thats what the punks have always known.

Or, in the bald terms of someone who put his teenage years in a punk band called Warkrime behind him to go and fight in an actual war, former YPG militia member Belden says: When I was younger my friends and I used to beat the shit out Nazis that would roll out to punk shows [in California]. And guess what? Theyd leave and never come back. Violence works.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/09/no-fascist-usa-how-hardcore-punk-fuels-the-antifa-movement

Rise above: will Donald Trump’s America trigger a punk protest renaissance?

Many view rock as a dated genre, but some bands are hoping to channel their punk predecessors and embody the USs collective sense of post-election unrest

Since the election, the Kominas have been getting the same curious request. The east coast punk band keeps being asked, by film-makers and documentarians, for a Donald Trump protest song. People just assume we have an anti-Trump song already recorded, says Basim Usmani, the groups bassist.

In the weeks preceding and following the election, musicians, fans and critics have discussed and debated the idea that Trumps impending presidency could inspire a new movement of politically charged protest music. So its no surprise that the Kominas, a South Asian American band whose discography includes provocative statements like Sharia Law in the USA, would be called upon for a musical reaction to the president-elect.

Its been hard to deal with, says Usmani, whose band recently recorded a new batch of material focusing instead on highlighting angst and mental health issues from the perspectives of people of color. Its radical for us to center ourselves in our own music, as opposed to Trump. Wed like to turn him into background noise.

The Kominas are just one band thats begun thinking about how to use rock music, viewed by many as a dated genre long past its cultural relevancy, to react to and channel the collective sense of unrest, fear and anger felt by tens of millions of Americans in the wake of last months election.

Less than two weeks after election night, Green Day began their performance at the 2016 American Music Awards by covering a snippet of Born to Die by 80s punk outfit Millions of Dead Cops. Green Days performance recalled the underground hardcore punk movement led by the likes of Black Flag, MDC and Minor Threat that flourished during the height of Reagans presidency in the 80s.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/15/protest-songs-hip-hop-punk-black-flag-trump

I guess this is growing up: pop punk comes of age (maybe)

Green Day are back with a song about mass shootings, Blink 182 knocked Drake off top spot in the album charts and Descendents have a new record. Can pop punks latest reboot finally give it some credibility?

The incendiary first track from Green Days 12th album, Revolution Radio, places Billie Joe Armstrong inside the head of a teenaged mass shooter, a semiautomatic lonely boy who wants to be a celebrity martyr; for now, in his mind, he is Daddys little psycho and Mommys little soldier. It is a very good track and a return to form for a band who appeared to be on the brink not so long ago.

Pop music isnt averse to tackling real-world issues, and Bang Bang is nothing if not topical. As Armstrong told Rolling Stone this week: Its about the culture of mass shooting that happens in America mixed with narcissistic social media. I dont know why someone would ever do something that horrific because I know I never would.

A 44-year-old man going there is not as portentous as it might sound. The pop punk genre of which Green Day became champions is based entirely on teenage alienation and small-town ennui. Its widely traced back to SoCal trailblazers Descendents, whose 1982 debut full-length, Milo Goes to College, deals entirely with, if not mass shootings, that disconnected mind that so often leads up to such tragedy. And while taken as a set text by any number of heavyweights who know a lot better, its homophobia has gone some way to discrediting the genre in more polite musical circles. (Im Not A Loser putting things most bluntly: Go away, you fucking homos.) The bands Bill Stevenson said in a recent Reddit AMA, We would have done things differently if we had known better, but we did not. We were 15. Singer Milo Aukerman said there had been some updating of the lyrics in that regard.

Which is sensible enough as wisdom after the fact. But it set a trail that would leave this musical genre defined by a dorkish, snotty and, at times, misogynistic tag it would never really escape. Blink-182 have never been allowed to be considered more than the band who released the (really rather excellent) Enema Of The State, made a million dick jokes and whose spirit animal is Stifler from American Pie. Yet youll be hard-pushed to find a band who take themselves more seriously than Blink-182: Travis Barker has a legitimate claim to being one of the best technical drummers around.

Its actually a wonder Green Day even made it to another record after the drama that followed them last time. In itself, their 2012 trilogy Uno!, Dos! and Tres! was a flawed confection, even if you put aside Billie Joes meltdown on the stage of iHeartRadio, which set up a trip to rehab and the subsequent jacking of most of the promotional schedule.

The ambitious gesture failed on almost every level. An attempt to get back to scratchy basics while showing all colours of style, the trilogy ended up projecting the bands rainbow too wide. Inevitably, it made the classic mistake of hiding a great little 11-track album inside a sprawling statement. It all spoke to a wider contradiction within pop punk, whose purveyors are the cerebral champions of deliberately shooting for dumb-ass something which no longer worked when they reached age 40. Blink have soldiered on but Green Day, of course, had long since graduated to something bigger.

2000s semi-acoustic Warning was a wholesomely emotional delight, and the concept opera American Idiot went against the odds to prove an enduring masterpiece. Revolution Radio, it seems, wants to go back to that smarter ground while ditching some of Green Days stadium excess. Green Day sound as though they are again becoming a force to be reckoned with, even if theyll never quite be called credible. Bang Bang makes, if not a statement, then a powerful observation of a country going wrong (the title track was inspired by Armstrong joining a Manhattan protest over the killing of black teenager Michael Brown).

Blink-182 and Green Days return ultimately proves pop punk can still shine an uncomfortable torch on society, while not forgetting the power of a well-placed dick joke.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/15/pop-punk-green-day-blink-182-descendents