Jon Batiste Hears Green Day’s ‘Holiday’ For the First Time, Magic Ensues
Jon Batiste participated in a unique experiment with Pianote. He was tasked to listen to the isolated vocals and drums of a song he’d never heard before. Then, he was challenged to come up with a piano part to accompany the song.
The song that’s part of this challenge is Green Day’s “Holiday.” If you have a spare 11 minutes or just need a distraction, you have to watch this clip, because what Batiste comes up with is nothing short of incredible. Plus, the joy with which he plays is so infectious that you can’t help but grin while watching.
While the rock world isn’t really Batiste’s scene, he has worked closely with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The trio famously collaborated on the score for the 2020 Pixar film Soul. Their work netted them an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Green Day Turns the Reissue Concept On Its Head
Green Day had a very eventful 2024, but perhaps, the silliest thing they did this year involved the 30th anniversary of their landmark album Dookie.
Instead of the traditional remaster treatment, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band opted to do a “demaster.” What’s a “demaster,” you ask? Apparently, it’s taking the songs from Dookie and putting them on literally any other format besides digital/streaming, vinyl, or CD.
Here’s what the delightful weirdos of Green Day did: They isolated each track off of Dookie and put them on the most “obscure, obsolete, and inconvenient formats.”
The phrase “obscure, obsolete, and inconvenient formats” does a lot of heavy lifting here, and yet, it truly doesn’t do this whole concept justice. The Dookie demaster features the 15 tracks of the classic album on the following random-ass formats:
- “Burnout” on a player piano roll
- “Having a Blast” on a floppy disk
- “Chump” on a Teddy Ruxpin
- “Longview” on a doorbell
- “Welcome To Paradise” on a Game Boy cartridge
- “Pulling Teeth” on a toothbrush (How apt!)
- “Basket Case” on a Big Mouth Billie Bass
- “She” on a Hitclip
- “Sassafras Roots” on an 8-track tape
- “When I Come Around” on a wax cylinder
- “Coming Clean” on a X-ray record
- “Emenius Sleepus” on an answering machine
- “In The End” on a MiniDisc
- “F.O.D.” on a Fisher Price record
- “All By Myself” on a music box
The whole stunt was hilarious, dumb, and a not-so-subtle f— you to the concept of reissues. It might just be the most punk thing Green Day has done in years.
