We can't believe we missed Green Day's Dookie being remastered for Nintendo Game Boy
That's one way to do a re-release.
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It's been more than 30 years since Dookie, the album that put Green Day on the map, was released, and to celebrate, the band has… demastered it?
In the world of video games, we know all about remasters, in fact these days we maybe know too much about them. Certain musicians do occasionally put out new versions of old albums, even if just to improve the audio quality a bit, but to celebrate Dookie's 30th anniversary, Green Day has decided to demaster it. "When an album hits a big milestone like its 30th anniversary, it gets the usual remasters on the usual formats," reads the description of the trailer introducing Dookie Demastered.
"But Dookie isn't a usual album. Instead of smoothing out its edges and tweaking its dynamic ranges, this version of Dookie has been meticulously mangled to fit on formats with uncompromisingly low fidelity, from wax cylinders to answering machines to toothbrushes. The listening experience is unparalleled, sacrificing not only sonic quality, but also convenience, and occasionally entire verses."
You might be thinking to yourself "this is ridiculous", and you'd be right, but yes, Green Day has in fact put Dookie's 15 tracks onto 15 different pieces of technology, old and older. For example, the album's most famous track, Basket Case, has been put into a Big Mouth Billie Bass, you know, one of those singing fish that are funny for two minutes. There's also Having A Blast on a floppy disk, which you can listen to on the demastered album's website, and sounds like the most 144p thing in existence.
Possibly the most fun of all, they put Welcome to Paradise, another classic banger from the album, on the original Game Boy. Unfortunately for you, you won't have a chance at getting your hands on one now, as you had to enter a lottery to win it, and there were only 25 copies of the Game Boy cartridge. Here's hoping one of those 25 winners (who do still actually have to pay for it, weirdly) share it with the rest of us to get a closer look at it.
My personal favourite is the Longview doorbell, which there's only one of, so I'm sure that whichever Green Day fan gets their hands on that one will feel a little smug everytime they get a delivery.