Billie Joe Armstrong, frontman of Green Day, could not keep quiet during the pandemic and from Monday 23 March 2020 began to make himself heard by posting, on the group's YouTube channel, a cover of I Think We’re Alone Now, by Tommy James and the Shondells. It was a first, fairly convincing effort in a series of covers done in the spirit of plain and simple pop rock which has become the hallmark of Green Day and its charismatic, eternally-adolescent singer. And so, every Monday, Billie Joe – with the help of a few friends – has been offering us a new pearl from among his favourite songs. They include some very popular songs, and others which are less obvious. In 2013, he had already had fun with a whole album (Foreverly) which revisited the legendary 1958 album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us by the Everly Brothers, as a duet with Norah Jones... This time, in terms of hits, we have a cover of Manic Monday written by Prince for The Bangles, with involvement from Susanna Hoffs, or Kim Wilde's essential eighties hit, Kids in America, which fits like a glove with Billie Joe's punk pop aesthetic, as is also the case for John Lennon's Gimme Some Truth, which, he explains he knows above all from the cover by Generation X, Billy Idol's former outfit. That means that the latter's influence makes itself felt, if anything more than that of the original artist... That's also the case with Police on my Back by the Equals, which is best known from its 1980 version performed by the Clash. In terms of lesser-known material, we have Avengers (Corpus Christi), The Starjets (War Stories) and The Wonders (That Thing You Do!), with tracks that offer plenty of material for Billie Joe to cut and shape as he pleases... In the end, the concept proves to have been a beautiful idea, and it allows the artist to introduce his fans to the influences and points of reference that contributed to the creation of the Green Day style. © Yan Céh/Qobuz