It turns out a lot of people have the time to hear Billie Joe Armstrong whine, because Green Day’s classic 1994 single Basket Case has just surpassed one billion streams on Spotify.
In the same month that Dookie celebrated its 30th anniversary, the album’s biggest song has also just reached a massive milestone.
Green Day have taken to social media to proudly announce that Basket Case has surpassed over one billion streams. It was added to Spotify’s Billions Club playlist this week alongside new additions from Taylor Swift and Beach House, while earlier in 2024 we also saw Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life, Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City, blink-182’s All The Small Things and AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long join the exclusive club.
In a recent episode of Song Exploder, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong admitted that his initial lyrics for Basket Case were written while he was “on crystal meth”, and… well… they weren’t great in his opinion. “As you know, with drugs, they wear off,” he said. “And then, I felt like I’d written the worst song ever. I thought that the lyrics were just embarrassingly bad. I had a few songs before that I’d written on drugs, but this one was the most pitiful I felt after. And so, I just kind of let the song go for a while, because I felt so gross about it.”
Thankfully, though, he returned to the song and gave it a complete overhaul, and it ultimately ended up being “the best decision I’d ever made, probably, as a songwriter”. Yep, it’s hard to argue with that!
Listen to the Billions Club playlist in full:
Green Day will be back in the UK this summer as part of The Saviors Tour, where they’ll be playing Dookie and American Idiot in full (plus more). Get your tickets now.
