Dookie is the third studio album and the major label debut by the rock band Green Day, released on February 1, 1994, by Reprise Records. The band’s first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo, it was recorded in 1993 at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California.
Written mostly by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, the album is heavily based around his personal experiences, with themes such as boredom, anxiety, relationships, and sexuality. The album was promoted with five singles: Longview, Basket Case, a re recorded version of Welcome to Paradise (originally on their Kerplunk album), When I Come Around, and She.
Dookie received critical acclaim upon its release and won the band a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 1995. It was also a worldwide success, reaching number two in the United States and the top five in several other countries; it is credited with helping to bring punk rock to mainstream popularity, and propelling Green Day to worldwide fame.
It was later certified diamond by the RIAA, and has sold close to 20 million copies worldwide, making it the band’s best-selling album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide. In 2003, Rolling Stone placed Dookie at number 193 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list.
In 2020, Rolling Stone re-ranked the album at number 375 on another revised list. Regarding its legacy, Dookie has been labeled by critics and journalists as one of the greatest punk rock and pop punk albums of all time.
Tracklist:
- Burnout
- Having a Blast
- Chump
- Longview
- Welcome to Paradise (re-recording)
- Pulling Teeth
- Basket Case
- She
- Sassafras Roots
- When I Come Around
- Coming Clean
- Emenius Sleepus (Mike Dirnt)
- In the End
- F.O.D. (song ends followed by hidden track “All by Myself” written and performed by Tré Cool)
The name of the album is a reference to the band members often suffering from diarrhea, which they referred to as “liquid dookie”, as a result of eating spoiled food while on tour. Initially the band was to name the album Liquid Dookie; however, this was deemed “too gross”, and so they settled on the name Dookie.
The album artwork by fellow East Bay punk Richie Bucher caused controversy, since it depicted bombs being dropped on people and buildings. The setting is a replica of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue. In the center, there is an explosion, with the band’s name at the top.
Armstrong has since explained the meaning of the artwork: I wanted the art work to look really different. I wanted it to represent the East Bay and where we come from, because there’s a lot of artists in the East Bay scene that are just as important as the music. So we talked to Richie Bucher. He did a 7 inch cover for this band called Raooul that I really liked.
He’s also been playing in bands in the East Bay for years. There’s pieces of us buried on the album cover.
There’s one guy with his camera up in the air taking a picture with a beard. He took pictures of bands every weekend at Gilman’s. The robed character that looks like the Mona Lisa is the woman on the cover of the first Black Sabbath album. AC/DC guitarist Angus Young is in there somewhere too.
The graffiti reading “Twisted Dog Sisters” refers to these two girls from Berkeley. I think the guy saying “The fritter, fat boy” was a reference to a local cop. The back cover on early prints of the CD featured a plush toy of Ernie from Sesame Street, which was airbrushed out of later prints for fear of litigation; however, Canadian and European prints still feature Ernie on the back cover.
Some rumors suggest that it was removed because it led parents to think that Dookie was a child’s lullaby album or that the creators of Sesame Street had sued Green Day.
Green Day
Billie Joe Armstrong: lead vocals, guitar
Mike Dirnt: bass, backing vocals
Tré Cool: drums, guitar and lead vocals on “All by Myself”
Technical personnel
Rob Cavallo, Green Day: producer, mixing
Jerry Finn: mixing
Neill King: engineer
Casey McCrankin: engineer
Richie Bucher: cover artist
Ken Schles: photography
Pat Hynes: booklet artwork
