Talk:American Idiot

Greatest albums of all time?

That seems a little over the top, unless you’re Stephen Erlewine of AllMusic. Of the decade, maybe. Edit0r6781 (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree. The only list that's reliably sourced calling it "greatest ever" that I found was Rolling Stone. Unless I'm missing the others. As such, I tweaked it. Robvanvee 19:13, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Rolling Stone’s ranking is a head scratcher. I was always under the impression that Dookie was considered their magnum opus, from fans and critics alike. It’s got better reviews across the board from what I can tell. Edit0r6781 (talk) 23:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. It just seems to be Rolling Stone. I don't think one publication is enough. Somarain (talk) 05:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Speeling of Novacaine

According to the note, "Novacaine" is an intentional misspelling. Novocaine is the correct spelling.

Is there a source for this statement? I didn't find anything definitive in a quick search. -98.144.130.222 (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Unless a source is found, the word "intentional" would need to be removed. Hzh (talk) 22:42, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Does this even need to be a footnote? Couldn't {{sic}} just be used instead? TollyH (talk) 22:55, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure people would necessarily know that it's spelt "Novocaine", so the "sic" itself might be confusing. Hzh (talk) 23:09, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

"Second" best-selling album?

What evidence is there Dookie has sold more than AI? The source that says Dookie has sold more than AI is 10 years old. It also says Dookie sold 20 million copies. We have sources from 2024 that say AI sold 23 million, which is more than 20 million. Somarain (talk) 05:11, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I retract this. Apparently the RIAA just named it double diamond (20 million). Somarain (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

New musical Adaptation by Deaf West

A new adaption of the broadway musical is finishing its run this November (2024). The musical was produced by Deaf West and was adapted to include American Sign Language. The show was extended for additional dates due to popular demand.

A section should be added to reflect the adaptation with additional details on the adaptations to story and presentation to fit the American Sign Language theme 75.46.191.93 (talk) 10:38, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

American Idiot Album Sales

Block evasion by User:Claudio1098. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hello, I wanted to make a correction and open a debate about the sales of American Idiot, the most reliable sources say that it sold 16 million copies not 23, even this information has no citation or source, I have been wanting to correct the information but it seems like some non-biased fan is reversing it Martinezc18 (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi, the statement about the album selling 23 million units is backed up by these two sources in the Release and commercial performance section. It is also listed at the List of best-selling albums page. λ NegativeMP1 00:47, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Rolling Stone magazine said it sold 16 million copies when reviewing its anniversary, many sites say it sold 16 million, not 23.https://www.rs500albums.com/250-201/248 https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/artists/green-day/ Martinezc18 (talk) 00:53, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Both of these are not reliable sources, as rs500albums is a blog operated by a single person that doesn't seem to actually be affiliated with Rolling Stone (per this page ) and ThisDayInMusic might not be reliable either. Billboard and Louder, however, are reliable sources for music-related subjects per this page. Furthermore, the official store listing for the 20th anniversary box set on Green Day's website says that the album sold 23 million units worldwide. So the numbers of the album selling 23 million units have been confirmed by both official/primary and secondary sources, and are also the most up-to-date sales figures. λ NegativeMP1 01:04, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Please send me the billboard link where it says that American idiot sold 23 million

Managed by a single person? It seems to me that you are wrong, Rolling Stone is a magazine that has always been associated with music, as well as Billboard. I don't think it is unreliable. Your answer seems strange to me. Martinezc18 (talk) 01:35, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I already sent the Billboard link that says 23 million, and I said the blog was operated by a single person, not Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone is unquestionably reliable. The blog most likely isn't. λ NegativeMP1 02:00, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

From all sources there is no unanimous consensus that supports those 23 million 100% I think I saw even more for the 16 million Martinezc18 (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

It's completely reasonable to think that those sources that still say the album sold 16 million are simply out of date. The 23 million figure is from Green Day's official website, which has since been confirmed and published by other reliable, secondary sources. It is the most recent official figure of the album's sales numbers, and that is what we should go with. λ NegativeMP1 02:04, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

As I said on your talk page, you have been blocked while using Bolivian IPs to disrupt Coldplay and Green Day articles regarding their sales totals. Now that you are continuing the disruption with a registered username does not erase the past trouble you caused.

Your sources are problematic. You have not brought any sources that are strong enough to contradict Billboard magazine, for instance. Binksternet (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Prose quality

As part of a larger edit to improve the quality of this article, I changed the awful prose in the opening sentence from "American Idiot is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Green Day" to "American Idiot is the seventh studio album by the US rock band Green Day".

I was reverted by User:Tbhotch with the frankly bizarre edit summary "Wikipedia is not censored".

I redid the change with the edit summary "This is not censorship", only to be reverted again, with the edit summary "you are old enough to know better and to distinguish good edits and an agenda editing".

I'm not clear what my age has to do with this, nor how it compares to Tbhotch's, and I certainly don't know what agenda Tbhotch imagines I have, but it seems WP:AGF has been casually overlooked, and Tbhotch needs to provide a far better reason for restoring such dreadful writing.

More importantly, my improvement should be reinstated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:05, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

300,000 edits = old. Wikipedia is constantly receiving agenda edits from people complaining that "American" is used as the demonym for the United States (a simple visit to Talk:United States, Talk:American, and their archives shows this). Changing "American" to US is not the norm, anywhere, and if you are doing this because you dislike how "American Idiot is the seventh studio album by the American rock" sounds, that is not a valid justification as it is not even redundant. Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 00:25, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

What does this edit have to do with "censorship"? What does it have to do with "an agenda editing", whatever that means?

Where did I say the wording was "redundant"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:59, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Never before have I seen "US rock band" be written over "American rock band", or any form of using a national abbreviation over a demonym to refer to a person or group (imagine "UK rock band the Beatles" or "CA singer-songwriter the Weeknd"). I've likely seen/read hundreds of articles on music subjects, and never has it been written this way. I see zero problem with this outside of "American" being said twice, which is not a problem. Calling this "awful prose" and "dreadful" is, at best, blown out of proportion. λ NegativeMP1 00:27, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

• https://www.google.com/search?q=%20%22US%20rock%20band%22%20
• https://www.google.com/search?q=%20%22UK%20rock%20band%20the%20Beatles%22%20

HTH. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:49, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

I meant Wikipedia articles. λ NegativeMP1 00:55, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22US+rock+band%22&title=Special:Search&go=Go&ns0=1&ns1=1
• {{US-rock-band-stub}}
• Category:United States musical group stubs
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22UK+band%22&title=Special:Search&go=Go&ns0=1&ns1=1

Again, HTH. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:05, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll give you the amount of hits for "UK band", but instances of "US rock band" are dwarfed by those for "American rock band". The results of "US rock band" and "US band" are 77 and 466 respectively, counting talk pages (which you did, for some reason). Most of these hits are also from articles not particularly well maintained (e.g. Live at Wolf Trap and Lusk (band)). Meanwhile, "American rock band" alone has 13,018. It's obvious what the most common one is. It's pretty easy to tell why I have never seen an article that writes the abbreviation in comparison to the demonym, though I see now that those articles exist.

So, now that you've established that a small handful of articles use "US rock band" or "US band", why do you think it's preferable to use "US rock band"? Do you think it would help anything, or anyone, at all? The main Green Day article says "American rock band". Multiple examples at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography use demonyms, and I can't find any uses of abbreviations there. λ NegativeMP1 01:20, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Your - very false - claim was "never has it been written this way."

That is now thoroughly disproven. Furthermore, it is done on many hundreds of articles, not "a small handful". You appear to have overlooked the majority of them.

Now that we know that it is acceptable to write "US ... band" - to the extent that we even use it in template boilerplate and article names - the only matter to address is why we supposedly cannot do so in this case.

It is preferable to do so, because the current formulation, repeating "American", is awful prose. Fixing that will help out readers, because it will make the prose easier to digest, and less jarring.

The main Green Day article does not do this, and I have not suggested changing it. It is irrelevant.

The examples in the MoS are not exhaustive, nor proscriptive. They are also about the nationality or ethnicity of individuals, not the country of origin of bands or other entities. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:44, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

"never has it been written this way" was in reference to articles I have seen ("I've likely seen/read hundreds of articles on music subjects"). It should also be obvious that that was not an exhaustive claim, for I have not read every single music article on Wikipedia and I attributed what I said to what I have seen. Now, I see articles now that do write it this way. Sure. But you did not prove me wrong on anything.

"You appear to have overlooked the majority of them" I put the exact number of hits that came up for "US band" and "US rock band". Saying I "overlooked them" is a lie. 77 and 466 are a "small handful" compared to 13,018. "Now that we know that it is acceptable to write "US ... band" I said that it was acceptable where? Because I still don't think it is. "to the extent that we even use it in template boilerplate and article names" The article title thing seems questionable as I don't see a single article from the search results provided that is named "US ... band" or "US band". I'm not convinced templates matter here since they're a fully separate area.

I fail to see what the issue with writing "American" twice in the same sentence. I do not think it is that repetitious. I have seen more jarring and harder to digest prose than simply using a word two times. I do not feel inclined to support something that is evidently not the Wikipedia norm over a non-issue. I think how it is now is fine. λ NegativeMP1 02:11, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

In falsely accusing my of posting a lie, you quote me out of context. How droll.

However, if you do not see that repeating a word - using it twice in the space of just ten words - is unduly repetitious, then I fear there is nothing else we can meaningfully discuss.

Hopefully, other editors will have more reasoned opinions.

Meanwhile, for advice on writing prose that is not awful, you might want to Google the phrase "avoid repeating adjectives". It is the Wikipedia norm not to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 02:31, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

What did I quote you out of context on, exactly?

Also is your comment about asking me to look up something supposed to be an insult and/or assumption of my English skills? Because that's what it comes off as. λ NegativeMP1 02:54, 9 February 2026 (UTC)