"What about 21 guns overloving your underwear in San Francisco"

Let's face it, if any other punk rock group but Green Day offered up this song as the first single off their new CD--especially if it was their first CD--they'd be accused of doing a not even terribly flattering copycat of ballad type songs by better known punk rock groups such as...Green Day.

21 Guns - Green Day



I'm not saying it is a bad song, because it actually has some nice turns. Except that those nice turns have been done before and, in some cases, far more famously. I mean, seriously, tell me you didn't immediately think of this as soon as you heard the opening bars (goes without saying, love this by the way):

San Francisco - Scott McKenzie



And then when the song gets to the chorus, it is so reminiscent of the grand scaling of the 80s "power" rock ballads during their choruses, what with their drum assisted crescendos:

What About Love - Heart
(Some day I will have to post about how, of all my female fronted groups, Heart is possibly my all time favorite. As an aside, Nancy Wilson once mention how much she hated getting dressed as she did for their mid to late 80s videos, but by then Annie had started to gain weight and so the record company wanted to make sure Nancy provided the right eye candy balance.)



And, while we're on the topic of drums, I confess that Tre Cool's dramatic pause before crashing down the sticks really reminds me of 'Leaf's pause, especially given the whole ballady air:

You Can't Overlove Your Underwear - The Fruit Guys



Too bad I am not into doing mashups, I think would have been a fine one!