Green Day is an American punk-rock band from California. As Patrick Stump (from Fall Out Boy) describes in Green Day’s Hall of Fame introduction speech, punk-rock is “loud,” “fast,” and (as Peter Wentz said) pretty  ass, because you never go through the easy (nor safe) route. CNN says that punk rock “woke up the next generation with a sound that was loud, fast and untamed.” Punk Rock is also a cultural wave that was impacting the world by storm.

Green Day’s song Holiday enacts the loud, fast, aggressive and culturally impactful characteristics of punk rock. As it was said in Green Day’s into video before Fall Out Boy speaks, the band wanted speak out against the state of political confusion and disenfranchisement. Green Day wanted to be loud to rally the audience together around their cause. In the case of Holiday, Green Day wanted the audience to be surrounded around the fact that war isn’t the best thing to occur. The lyrical deliverance is “angry, loud, and fast ,” (Stump from the Hall of Fame Induction speech). The instrumentation of the song was very loud, and fast-paced, which sticks within the genre requirements for punk-rock. Even when performing, Tre Cool’s hair wasn’t the normal color… it was green for crying out loud, GREEN (which isn’t conventional)!! The genre of punk-rock is always going against societal norms as they fight against the status-quo.

The New York Times article interviews many artists that identified with punk-rock and Miles Cocker compared punk-rock to a massive piece of denim. Saying that “there’s nothing that’s wrong or right about it, it’s just a thing that gives anything you want to do some backing.” Punk-rock is a genre that can give people a reason to express their concerns, and (as Steve Diggle quotes) can wake up people’s conscience while assaulting the senses. The song Holiday is a song that makes people aware of the war that is going on in the Middle East, and gives its listeners a reason to express their anti-war political stance.