¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! needs improvement

In an extremely short 78-day time period, Green Day released three brand new albums titled ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! towards the end of 2012. But isn’t releasing three full-length albums, totaling at 37 tracks, a bit over the top and too much to handle?

 With ¡Uno! kicking off the trilogy in September, Green Day released a fairly decent album, reinventing their musical style and bringing a new energy to the stage with an excessive pop feel. The band also experimented with sounds and genres that they’ve never touched before, as seen in their dance-punk song, “Kill the DJ.”

¡Uno! is probably the best album out of the trilogy, bringing a positive start to Green Day’s three-album release. However, songs like “Oh Love” prove otherwise. A combination of pop punk and alternative rock, the song features a crisp guitar lead as Billie Joe Armstrong sings how his “heart’s on the loose.” Nevertheless, the overall track isn’t the best and the music video features the members of Green Day partying with some scantily clad models: nothing unique or worthwhile like the band has made in the past.

Compared to ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, released in November, was rather dull. The entire album features an assortment of disappointing and unorganized songs, proving the band to be a group of 40-year-old men trying to act like adolescents. ¡Dos!, far from the pop punk feel eminent in ¡Uno!, sounds as if Green Day is trying to play classic rock and roll in a garage, which makes the album rather unsuccessful.

Unlike ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! was able to hold a candle to ¡Uno! in its December release. Bringing the dynamic energy back on the stage and mixing together sounds Green Day had used in their earlier albums in the 90s and 2000s, Green Day successfully created music composed of their modern and old styles.

The song “The Forgotten” had been included in the soundtrack of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and the single “X-Kid” is an inspirational track, with lyrics describing a youthful desire for a better future. ¡Tré! is a great album, closing Green Day’s newest saga with a bang.

The trilogy of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! is symbolic in Green Day’s deviation from the rock operas and the tales of American youth, as seen in their albums American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown. However, the step away from what they’ve become known for almost an entire decade isn’t necessarily progressive. The three albums are riddled with unnecessary profanity and describe the sexual frustration of aging men.

Overall, all three albums could have been much better. Maybe releasing three whole albums in a short span of time wasn’t one of their best decisions.