Recorded May – September 1991 Artist Green Day Label Lookout Records Genres Punk rock, Pop punk | Kerplunk
(1991) Dookie
(1994) Release date 17 January 1992 Producer Andy Ernst | |
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Released December 17, 1991 (original release)
January 17, 1992 (CD and cassette release) Studio Art of Ears Studios, San Francisco, California Length 33:58 (vinyl version)
42:09 (CD/Cassette version) Similar Green Day albums, Punk rock albums | ||
Kerplunk is the second studio album by American punk rock band Green Day, released on December 17, 1991 by Lookout Records. Kerplunk was Green Day's last release on the Lookout Records label, and was also the first album to feature Tré Cool on drums. After debuting the album to their fans in the Berkeley, California area and receiving much approval from the critical 924 Gilman Street crowd, the band packed up in a cramped, converted Book Mobile and headed east. The band developed a fan base on the east coast behind the touring support of grassroots promotor, Jak Werz. The risk paid off as album sales reached over 50,000 copies. Along with the albums sales and the successful live shows, major labels took notice of Kerplunk's phenomenal popularity, as a result, many approached the band. Green Day realized that they had outgrown their record distribution capacity with Lookout! and eventually signed with Reprise Records. With Reprise, Green Day recorded and released their next album Dookie (1994). The album officially includes only 12 tracks, but the versions released on CD and cassette also include the 4 tracks from the Sweet Children EP. One of those tracks is a cover of The Who's "My Generation".
Contents
In August 2005, Green Day pulled the album, as well as all of their other material released through the Lookout! label due to unpaid royalties. It was reissued on CD by Reprise Records, who Green Day has been with since leaving Lookout!, on January 9, 2007. In Europe, the album was released by Epitaph Europe, and has remained in print. It was reissued on vinyl on March 24, 2009 by Reprise Records and includes a reissue of the Sweet Children EP. There were no official singles released from the album, although "2000 Light Years Away" and "Christie Road" were released as mock-up singles in a Green Day singles box set entitled Green Day: Ultimate Collectors. As of November 2013, Kerplunk has sold more than 1,000,000 copies in the United States and more than 4,000,000 copies worldwide. The album has gone on to be among the best selling independently released albums of all time.
Artwork
Kerplunk was banned from certain stores because of the cover art. The cover features a mostly white picture (with some green added in) of a high school girl with a gun that has been fired. On the back cover, there is a boy lying on the ground with a gunshot wound on his back.
Reception
AllMusic regards Kerplunk as the "perfect dry run" for the band's later mainstream appeal, saying it contains "both more variety and more flat-out smashes than previous releases had shown." Pitchfork Media states "All in all, it's a magnitude better than its predecessor and only a hair behind the follow up."
In December 2007, Blender magazine ranked the album number 47 on their "The 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums Ever" list.
Track listing
All lyrics written by Billie Joe Armstrong, except where noted; all music composed by Green Day, except where noted.
Personnel
Adapted from the album liner notes.
Green Day
Production
Songs
12 - 000 Light Years Away2:24
2One for the Razorbacks
3Welcome to Paradise3:31