sum 41

[5] Green Day, ‘American Idiot’

Green Day

Junior reckons “it’s too noisy.”

Me? I can’t stand Green Day. Punk? Pah. Just snotty, stary, immaculately-scruffily coiffed Americans opening the door to the limp likes of Sum 41 and any number of other anarcho-veneered, Studio Line-spiked college brats.

Imagine my irritation when ‘’American Idiot’ kicked a hole in our heads with a chorus strong enough to fell Big Daddy. It’s like your Harley cannoning down the road, leaving you flat on your arse, thinking, erm, “Rats. I swore I’d never like a Green Day song.” Thank God the lyrics are so trite.

Sing along to the age of paranoia!

[3] Girls Aloud, ‘Biology’

“The way that we TALK, the way that we WALK”. Junior finds this frustrating. Are they teasing her? She’s still laughing at me standing by the stereo, but it’s a CD so I’m not even trying to be the superfly DJ. Those new-fangled CD decks are just cheating anyway. You don’t get the chance to hit the stylus arm by mistake, and you never need to balance a 20p coin anywhere to stop it jumping.

I could be the muso about this song’s unusual structure. Girls Aloud and Xenomania eschew your standard verse-chorus arrangement to fling in a load of highs and “can you see the join?” splicing. It shows ambition that a lot of modern pop lazily avoids, whether you like the record or not, and it’s a gamble. They don’t get the Number Ones you might expect, and perhaps they don’t appeal to “the kids” as much as they do to the pop scholars.

Pop scholars: Paul Morley, Paul Gambaccini, writers at Stylus and Pitchfork, the NME to satisfy the occasional whim, and hey, me. And Junior. Will she be defending this sort of stuff when all her friends are into the 2018 equivalents of Sum 41, the Kaiser Chiefs, the Killers and 50 Cent? Don’t fail me now.