On This Day: Green Day Released Revolution Radio in 2016
Ten years after Revolution Radio arrived, revisit the Oakland recording and the production credit Green Day took themselves.
Original editorial illustration of Billie Joe Armstrong, informed by a documented 2016 performance photograph. This does not depict a recording session.
Green Day released Revolution Radio on October 7, 2016. Ten years later, one detail on the record still deserves attention: the band took the production credit themselves. The 12-track album was recorded in Oakland. Warner’s album announcement
A band taking the controls
Follow the decisions across the record: where a song pushes forward, where it pulls back, and how the sequence changes the pace.
“Bang Bang” was the first single. The album starts with “Somewhere Now” and ends with “Ordinary World,” with the title track and “Still Breathing” between them.
Hear those bookends together before returning to the singles.
In the release announcement, Billie Joe Armstrong described Revolution Radio as a place for people who felt lost to find one another through singing and dancing. That is his stated aim, rather than a claim that every listener hears the record the same way.
A third UK Number 1
The album went on to become Green Day’s third UK Official Albums Chart Number 1, following American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown. Official Charts’ report
Which Revolution Radio track has lasted best for you: a single, an album cut, or one of those two bookends?
For the wider equipment story: Read our Billie Joe Armstrong guitar guide.