Maps of Music

Kerplunk! (1991)

Where the lyrics of Kerplunk! take you, and where it was really made.

The album went on sale in the UK a month before its formal US release, and the band had already carried 300 copies on its December 1991 UK tour.

Key places

Where the album was recorded (1991)

Recording site Soapbox West — The band recorded at Art of Ears Studios in San Francisco from May 1991, and returned there in September 1991 to finish the album. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Kerplunk (stylized Kerplunk!) is the second studio album by the American rock band Green Day
• Released in the UK on December 17, 1991; formally released in the US on January 17, 1992 by Lookout! Records
• First Green Day album to feature drummer Tré Cool
• Characterized as pop-punk and punk rock
• Songs deal with love and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's subconscious, with boredom and alienation also touched on
• Album is overall dedicated to Dirnt's late cat, Gravy; Kiffmeyer is given an executive producer credit

Background

• Predecessor 39/Smooth (April 1990, Lookout) was promoted with a 45-date US tour starting June 1990
• John Kiffmeyer left after that tour to enroll at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California
• Armstrong only found out about the departure through a friend
• Tré Cool had been playing with the Lookouts since he was 12
• Kerplunk rode on the success of Nevermind (1991) by Nirvana, with some commenters seeing Green Day as the next Nirvana

Recording

• The band went to Art of Ears Studios in San Francisco in May 1991, an inexpensive facility
• After the minor success of 39/Smooth, the budget had risen to $2,000.00
• Andy Ernst, who had worked on 39/Smooth, co-produced the sessions with the band
• Six tracks were recorded before the band had to resume touring
• Band abandoned the demos and re-recorded them, returning to the studio in September 1991
• Four days in total were spent recording; Ernst also mixed and engineered
• John Golden mastered the album at K-Disc in Hollywood, California

Cover

• Artwork by Chris Appelgren and Pat Hynes, based on a story by Lookout founder Larry Livermore
• The story follows a girl obsessed with Green Day who is arrested at its end for murdering her parents
• The back of the sleeve shows a person bleeding on the ground

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Artist

Formation

• Green Day is an American rock band formed in Rodeo, California, in 1987 by Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt.
• Drummer Tré Cool joined in 1990, and the band has mostly been a power trio since.
• Before taking the name Green Day in 1989, the band was called Sweet Children.
• The band emerged from the late 1980s and early 1990s Bay Area punk scene centered on 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley.
• Early releases came through Lookout! Records, including the debut album 39/Smooth (1990).

Career

• Dookie (1994, Reprise Records) became a breakout success and sold over 20 million copies in the United States.
• Green Day is credited with reigniting mainstream interest in punk rock.
• Insomniac (1995) and Nimrod (1997) reached double platinum; Warning (2000) was certified gold.
• American Idiot (2004), a rock opera, found popularity with a younger generation and sold six million copies in the US.
• The trilogy ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! was released in 2012; it did not match earlier commercial success.
• Later albums include Revolution Radio (2016), Father of All Motherfuckers (2020), and Saviors (2024).
• A stage adaptation of American Idiot opened on Broadway in 2010 and received three Tony nominations.
• The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, its first year of eligibility.
• The band has sold roughly 75 million records worldwide as of 2024 and won five Grammy Awards.

Reception

At release

• Critics responded positively, with a selection of them highlighting Cool's addition to the band's sound
• Coverage was largely limited to fanzines such as Flipside and Maximum Rocknroll
• Myers said the consensus was that the album was an upgrade from their previous work
• Strength credited the change to Cool, saying the group's overall finesse as a punk rock band was noticeably better
• Conaton said the songs stand shoulder to shoulder with anything the band created later
• Raub called Cool and Dirnt the band's secret weapon, a solid rhythm section
• AllMusic's Ned Raggett wrote that Cool shows a little more flash and ability than John Kiffmeyer did
• Pitchfork's Jess Harvell commented on the bridge sections and the final chorus
• A Rock Sound writer deemed Kerplunk! the most pure strain of Green Day
• NME's Simon Williams called it a storming-but-soothing antidote to the grunge acts of the time

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone placed the album at number 29 on its list of the 50 best pop-punk albums
• Blender ranked it number 47 on its list of the best 100 indie rock albums
• Rock Sound placed it at number 27 on its list of the best 100 pop-punk albums
• Publications ranked the album in the higher to middle ends of the band's discography, including IGN at number three

Records

• Sold 10,000 copies on its first day of release, becoming one of the biggest-selling releases for Lookout Records
• Topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart after the success of Dookie
• Certified platinum in the US; certified gold in the UK in 2013
• Sold four million copies worldwide as of January 2017

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Livermore was unaware of the finished album until the band gave him a tape of it in late 1991, when they told him it would be titled Kerplunk
• The artwork's story was included on the lyric sheet in each copy of the album
• The 'Welcome to Paradise' song was inspired by a warehouse above a brothel in West Oakland, Oakland, California
• Livermore said the girl on the cover became the character of the story, seen holding a smoking gun while smirking
• The album's artwork led to it being banned from certain stores

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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