Dookie

Dookie was the band's first work with producer Rob Cavallo. Before they started, Cavallo heard a four-track demo with She, Sassafras Roots, Pulling Teeth and F.O.D. The most time the band had spent recording an album was three days, for Kerplunk, and they were nervous. Cavallo took them to a Mexican restaurant to relax. Recording took three weeks at Fantasy Studios. Armstrong recorded about 16 or 17 vocals in two days, most in a single take, and played a 100-watt Marshall amplifier he called Pete and a Stratocaster he called Blue. The first mixes were too dry, so the album was remixed at Devonshire Sound Studios, and Chump and Longview were re-recorded at Music Grinder Studio because the first takes had tape hiss. Armstrong later said everything was already written and all they had to do was play it.

The name came from a joke. The band wanted to call it Liquid Dookie, after the diarrhea they suffered from spoiled food on tour, and shortened it. Richie Bucher drew the cover, a cartoon of bombs dropped on a replica of Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue while dogs and monkeys throw excrement, with Rodeo's oil refineries in the distance. Armstrong wrote most of the songs. Dirnt wrote Emenius Sleepus, and Tre Cool wrote the hidden track All by Myself, which follows F.O.D.

Release

The first 9,000 copies sold out. Longview was serviced to radio on the day of release, and after its video reached MTV on 22 February the album entered the Billboard 200 at number 127. It peaked at number two, topped the charts in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and was certified gold by 14 June 1994. Longview, Basket Case and When I Come Around all reached number one on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The RIAA certified it diamond in 1999, and later 20 times platinum. It won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album at the 37th ceremony. Some early fans accused the band of selling out.

In early 1995 Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that apathy had rarely sounded so passionate. Mark Sutherland of NME concluded that being dumb had never been so much fun. Pitchfork's 2017 review called it one of the greatest teenage wasteland albums of any generation. In 2024 the Library of Congress selected it for the National Recording Registry.