Songoftheday 1/18/20 - I'm on a mission I made my decision to lead a path of self-destruction...

"Geek Stink Breath" - Green Day
from the album Insomniac (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #27 (one week)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 6

Today's song of the day comes from the pioneering pop-punk trio Green Day, who after taking rock radio by storm with their major-label debut Dookie, they landed another Alternative Rock #1 with "J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)" from the movie Angus that had enough mainstream radio love to make the top-40 of Billboard's Airplay chart but was kept from the official Hot 100 pop list by not being released as a single (which labels often did to spike album sales, though in this case I'm not sure that was the case). In the fall of 1995, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool returned with their next album Insomniac. A more nuanced album than Dookie, it nonetheless was preceded a month before by the lead single "Geek Stink Breath". Written by the band who produced the track wit Rob Cavallo, the odd-titled song dealt with drug abuse (and the halitosis that often accompanies it)...

Like the hits from Dookie and "J.A.R.", Green Day didn't release "Geek Stink Breath" as a commercially-available "single", so the song didn't appear on Billboard's Hot 100 official pop chart. Nevertheless, it had enough mainstream radio airplay to get into the top-40 of the airplay portion of the chart. The song spent three weeks at #3 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, while peaking at #9 on their Mainstream Rock radio list. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Finland (#5), New Zealand (#11), the UK (#16), Canada (#22), Ireland (#27), Sweden (#28), and Australia (#40). The trio were nominated for three American Music Awards that year as well, losing Artist of the Year to Garth Brooks (who refused it) and TLC (who took it), and both Alternative and Hard Rock Artist categories to Pearl Jam.

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Here's Green Day appearing on SNL performing the song...