Green Day's Top 20 biggest hits revealed

In the list of things that never go out of style, add Green Day. Believe it or not, the California punk-rock band have now been racking up hits with their fiery brand of punk-rock for 26 years in the UK. 

In such time, they've landed 22 tracks in the Official Singles Chart Top 40 and eight Top 10 albums – including two Number 3s, most recently with 2016's Revolution Radio. Oh, and there's the small matter of their own musical, which continues to tour the UK a decade after its debut. 

MORE: Green Day's Official UK Chart history in full

To celebrate the release of new album Father Of All Motherf**kers, we're looking back at their big ones - singles and albums. Who said punk-rock was dead? Let's start with a closer look at their Top 5 singles...

6. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Released: December 2004
Official Chart peak: Number 5

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 (where it's reportedly sold over 2 million), but it places fifth in the UK with chart sales of 425,000, including 23.4 million streams.

4. Wake Me Up When September Ends

Released: June 2005
Official Chart peak: Number 8

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 chart sales to date stand at 678,000, including 36.5 million streams.

3. Basket Case

Released: August 1994, re-released January 1995
Official Chart Peak: Number 7

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/ About nothing and everything all at once?" 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 chart sales stand at 761,000, including a massive 52 million streams - their most-streamed song in the UK. 

2. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Released: January 1998
Official Chart peak: Number 11

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, but is perhaps one of their most enduring. From high school proms to TV show finales... Good Riddance has and will continue to soundtrack life's poignant moments, and only narrowly misses out being the band's biggest song in the UK - 817,000 chart sales, including 39 million streams. 

1. American Idiot

Released: September 2004
Official Chart peak: Number 3

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. Kings of predicting the future.

It was controversial, but it worked - the song was a hit across the world, including the UK, where it landed at Number 3. It's also their biggest single in the UK, with 827,000 chart sales, including 51.5 million streams. 

Green Day's Official Top 20 biggest songs on the Official UK Chart 

POS	TITLE	ARTIST	PEAK	YEAR
1	AMERICAN IDIOT	GREEN DAY	3	2004
2	GOOD RIDDANCE (TIME OF YOUR LIFE)	GREEN DAY	11	1998
3	BASKET CASE	GREEN DAY	7	1994
4	WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS	GREEN DAY	8	2005
5	HOLIDAY	GREEN DAY	11	2005
6	BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS	GREEN DAY	5	2005
7	21 GUNS	GREEN DAY	36	2009
8	WHEN I COME AROUND	GREEN DAY	27	1995
9	JESUS OF SUBURBIA	GREEN DAY	17	2005
10	KNOW YOUR ENEMY	GREEN DAY	21	2009
11	BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS	ORIGINAL CAST FT GREEN DAY	N/A	2010
12	MINORITY	GREEN DAY	18	2000
13	WELCOME TO PARADISE	GREEN DAY	20	1994
14	LONGVIEW	GREEN DAY	30	1995
15	THE SAINTS ARE COMING	U2 & GREEN DAY	2	2006
16	BANG BANG	GREEN DAY	84	2006
17	WARNING	GREEN DAY	27	2000
18	BRAIN STEW	GREEN DAY	28	1996
19	STILL BREATHING	GREEN DAY	N/A	2016
20	HITCHIN' A RIDE	GREEN DAY	25	1997

©2020 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.

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 2.3 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 125 weeks in the Top 100. Click here to view the album's full, week-by-week UK chart run. 

What is surprising though is that Green Day have a second million-selling album. 1994's Dookie, which includes the singles Basket Case, Welcome To Paradise and When I Come Around, has shifted 1.01 million chart s ales 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 888,000 chart sales in the UK. Meanwhile, 2009's 21st Century Breakdown (484,000) and 2005's Bullet In A Bible (433,00) complete the Top 5.

Green Day's Official Top 10 biggest albums in the UK

POS	TITLE	PEAK	YEAR
1	AMERICAN IDIOT	1	2004
2	DOOKIE	13	1994
3	INTERNATIONAL SUPERHITS	15	2001
4	21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN	1	2009
5	BULLET IN A BIBLE	6	2005
6	NIMROD	11	1997
7	INSOMNIAC	8	1995
8	WARNING	4	2000
9	UNO	2	2012
10	KERPLUNK		N/A

©2020 Official Charts Company . All rights reserved.