Which is how we arrive at ¡Uno!, the triptych’s first installment. Either due to healthy self-confidence or unrestrained hubris, the band is doing both. Subsequently, the available courses of action were either to scale down or go even more expansive. The 2004 career comeback American Idiot was an undisputed triumph, but its 2009 follow-up, 21st Century Breakdown, felt overly fussed-over and veered into solemnity on par with U2’s more insufferable periods. It’s a burning question both because the band’s ascension to the ranks of rock’s elder statesmen over the past decade raises speculation regarding what lands are left to conquer, and because the creative course Green Day has charted during that time has led it a fair distance from days of Dookie past. Green Day’s new LP trilogy is the group’s response to the question of where it goes after two ambitious rock operas in a row. That’s Green Day for you: even as all three of its members reach their 40th birthdays this year, their senses of humor will eternally be tapped into the wavelength of everyone’s inner middle-schooler. Admittedly, it’s a joke that despite my better instincts always elicits a chuckle from me whenever I see the titles laid out in print, so I have to give Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool credit for that.
¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tre! - Green Day’s rapid-fire release of three albums over the next few months - is simultaneously a bold artistic and commercial maneuver by punk’s biggest band and an excuse for the trio to affix a promotional budget to a dumb joke.