Billie Bass

October 9, 2024 12:20 PM

To further commemorate the 30th anniversary of their 40x Platinum-certified album Dookie, Green Day has announced the launch of their new project “Dookie Demastered”—re-releasing the album into 15 “obscure, obsolete or bizarre formats”.

Green Day collaborated with BRAIN to recreate the original tracks into accompanying objects to go with each one. “Basket Case” is represented by a Big Mouth Billy Bass, “When I Come Around” is a wax cylinder and “Chump” has a life-size Teddy Ruxpin bear. Other formats include a floppy disk, a doorbell, a Game Boy cartridge, HitClips, a singing toothbrush and other “inconvenient” configurations.

posted by JoeZydeco (23 comments total)

Instead of smoothing out its edges and tweaking its dynamic ranges, this version of Dookie has been met­icu­lously mangled to fit on formats with uncom­promis­ing­ly low fidelity, from wax cylinders to answering machines to toothbrushes. The listening experience is unparalleled, sacrificing not only sonic quality, but also convenience, and occasionally entire verses.

Not super into Green Day, but I love this.
posted by box at 12:42 PM on October 9 [13 favorites]

Hello Teddy, I would like to be your friend.
posted by funkaspuck at 12:44 PM on October 9

So I guess this is the timeline where I suddenly respect Green Day? Mad props. 😉
posted by foxtongue at 12:44 PM on October 9 [10 favorites]

I'm not quite sure if the non-functioning play button is part of the joke or a problem with my browser(s), but I must say this is a fantastic idea. The Fisher Price record is just a fantastic idea, especially when the player itself is not included.
posted by TwoWordReview at 12:46 PM on October 9

The inclusion of x-ray record is fascinating since the original album was released 6 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so was probably never pressed into a “real” x-ray record.
posted by funkaspuck at 12:46 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

Early Greenday was the sound of my youth, so I love this.
posted by Carillon at 12:52 PM on October 9

Might be a browser thing. The play button should bring up a video showing the track playing on whatever artifact goes with it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:57 PM on October 9

The "Having a Blast" floppy disk just sounds like a heavily compressed mp3...

Are these just the same versions that me and my friends traded in the late 90s?!
posted by bigendian at 1:13 PM on October 9

It does say it's just encoded as a 16kbps. The 3.5 floppy was invented in 1971? WHA?

That said, they do say there's a RealAudio version (which is what I'd be far more interested in than the wav/mp3 they have (with included exe player, which I guess is nice, curious if it's just a wav at low bitrate or mp3 or what)

Anwyays, I used to listen to this album a lot, and I had my friend's cousing introduced us to Green Day before they became big (I wanna be your domineering love slave he'd love to sing). I got to see them in 93, Tre Cool was in front of us, and we just smiled at him as he was in the crowd jamming to Pansy Division (This was in Appleton at some small little warehouse looking place in the podunks).

Anyways, none of you enter this so I have a better chance at winning. I haven't really been into a lot of their stuff after this album - mostly cuz pop-punk was ruined by all the shittier bands that got popular after and I had moved on. But I still love the idea of "demastering" into older media formats.
posted by symbioid at 1:31 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

This worries me "A preloved Teddy"... Loved HOW MUCH exactly?
posted by symbioid at 1:32 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

Ha! The discogs contributing completionists are going to both love and hate this.
posted by lawrencium at 1:33 PM on October 9 [9 favorites]

Man, that's a fun idea. I never knew anyone who had a Teddy Ruxpin, but we all talked about putting regular tapes into him and having him sing. The commercials for him were shown for a solid decade during cartoons I swear.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:53 PM on October 9

This is awesome. Can't wait to show to my kids who have never even seen a CD in real life. I doubt they've even heard of any of these formats besides the music box and Fisher Price record.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:00 PM on October 9

We just saw Green Day during the Saviors tour. They played all of Dookie and American Idiot, and a good time was had by all. They're notable for still being relevant, for still releasing new music that people actually listen to, and their live show is still, after all these years, a really good time. Good on em, now where's my preloaded Zune?
posted by 1adam12 at 2:14 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]

This is so stupid, I love it. Those 2nd and 3rd Green Day albums do rule. Also Billie Joe's contemporaneously-initiated (circa 1992) and better-to-my-ears band, Pinhead Gunpowder is releasing a new record this year, I'm sure it will be good, look out for it.
posted by kensington314 at 2:48 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]

I'll say this right here and right now in front of God, Henry Rollins, and everyone.

Green Day is punker than NOFX and it's appropriate that Fat Mike hung up his spurs first.

Pinhead Gunpowder has a new album coming out for them's as interested.
posted by East14thTaco at 3:13 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]

The 3.5 floppy was invented in 1971? WHA?

No. The 8" floppy was invented in 71. The 3" variants came along in the early eighties. There were 3 competing "standards." I know this because my company bet on the wrong horse and had to retool the manufacturing.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:44 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

I tried to put a regular tape into a Teddy Ruxpin, The Vegetables, and if memory serves there was a minor mechanical tweak that made it so this was impossible to do. I was disappointed.
posted by kensington314 at 3:46 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

I just looked it up out of interest, and it's pretty neat actually -- the Teddy Ruxpin tapes were stereo tapes will all the audio in the left channel, and the right channel was high-frequency instructions for how the animatronics should move in sync. If you play a regular stereo tape in one, the bad signals in the right channel could cause the servos to move erratically and possibly be damaged, so 2nd and 3rd gen Teddys have a pin that causes the tape to be ignored if depressed, with the authentic tapes having an extra hole drilled so as to not depress the pin.
posted by rifflesby at 4:09 PM on October 9 [11 favorites]

Nope, still haven't forgiven them for trying to get me killed! :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:25 PM on October 9

While window-shopper me is tempted by the Dookie toothbrush and the Fisher-Price record (I already have a player), the ‘Longview’ doorbell might be the pick of the litter.
posted by box at 4:37 PM on October 9

My first thought on reading "obscure, obsolete, or bizarre formats" was "I hope they put the album on a SyQuest cartridge."
posted by Mister Moofoo at 9:30 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]

At first I thought this might have been kind of poignant, using objects that one might have found in an Oakland punk's apartment in the late 80s/early 90s and all the toys they grew up with. But the piano roll and wax cylinder kind of nix that idea.

If I was brainstorming with the band I would have voted for an Atari 2600, a music video on a PXL2000 cassette, and a Rock-afire Explosion (although that's already been done).
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:06 AM on October 10