Green Day's biggest selling singles & albums in the UK
Green Day's official biggest selling singles and albums in the UK revealed
The princes of punk-rock return with new album Revolution Radio – we count down their best sellers.
Green Day's Official Top 20 biggest selling songs in the UK are...
1. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) (1998)
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Featuring on the band's 1997 album Nimrod (through written by Armstrong several years earlier), Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) is far from the band's biggest chart hit, peaking at Number 11 in the UK.
From high school proms to TV show finales... Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) has and will continue to soundtrack life's poignant moments, and as such, it lands right at the the top of Green Day's best sellers list with sales of 423,000.
2. Wake Me Up When September Ends (2005)
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Another cut from their American Idiot album, Wake Me Up... was written by Armstrong about the death of his father, and not long after its release, became symbolic for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. It's one of Green Day's five Top 10 singles in the UK, peaking at Number 8, and its sales to date stand at 317,800.
3. American Idiot (2004)
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It's the song that put Green Day back in the centre of the global stage. The lead single and title track from their hit album, American Idiot is Green Day at their most politically explicit, contending that mass media has orchestrated paranoia and idiocy among the general public.
It was controversial, but it worked - the song was a hit across the world, including the UK, where it landed at Number 3. Coincidentally, it also finishes third on their all-time best sellers list, with sales of 317,200 to date.
4. Basket Case (1994)
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Green Day's fourth biggest seller was the moment they well and truly cracked the UK. Basket Case's sharp, ear-snagging lyrics about ones descent into madness can be recited by any punk-rock-raver worth their salt ("Do you have the time/ To listen to me whine?" is surely one of the best opening lines of a punk song ever?).
So sure were they of its hit potential that it had two cycles on the Official Singles Chart; once in 1994 where it peaked at 55, and again six months later in 1995 where it reached a much healthier Number 7. To date, its sales in the UK stand at 263,800.
5. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (2004)
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The second single from their hugely successful American Idiot album, Boulevard... has become one of the band's signature songs. Penned by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, the song was written in New York and is about, he says, "feeling alone but trying to take power from that". It's their biggest selling song in America (it's reportedly sold 2 million in the country), but it places fifth in the UK with sales of 238,600.
6 21 GUNS
7 KNOW YOUR ENEMY
8 HOLIDAY
9 BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS (AMERICAN IDIOT MUSICAL VERSION)
10 THE SAINTS ARE COMING
11 MINORITY
12 WHEN I COME AROUND
13 JESUS OF SUBURBIA
14 WARNING
15 WELCOME TO PARADISE
16 THE SIMPSONS THEME
17 LONGVIEW
18 GEEK STINK BREATH
19 HITCHIN' A RIDE
20 BRAIN STEW/JADED
And as for Green Day's biggest selling albums...
It won't shock you that the band's biggest selling album is 2004's American Idiot, shifting 2.15 million units in the UK. Debuting at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart, such was its prolonged success that it returned to the top spot 14 weeks later, and to date has spent 124 weeks in the Top 100.
What is surprising though is that Green Day are steadily approaching a second million-selling album. 1994's Dookie, which includes the singles Basket Case, Welcome To Paradise and When I Come Around, has sold 959,000 copies despite only peaking at Number 13 on the Official Chart.
Rounding off the Top 3 is their 2001 retrospective International Superhits. Released three years before American Idiot, the collection peaked at Number 15 and has sold over 852,000 copies in the UK.
Check out Green Day's Official Top 10 biggest selling albums in the UK below:
1 AMERICAN IDIOT
2 DOOKIE
3 INTERNATIONAL SUPERHITS
4 21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN
5 BULLET IN A BIBLE
6 NIMROD
7 INSOMNIAC
8 WARNING
9 UNO
10 KERPLUNK
