After Green Day’s outstanding 7^th studio album of B-Sides, Shenanigans, Green Day went back to the drawing boards looking for some new inspiration to come up with a new Green Day album.  The album was rumored to be something between Nimrod and Warning and was called Cigarettes and Valentines.  As soon as Green Day was about to finish up the album something horrible happened, the members of Green Day said that the master tapes of Cigarettes and Valentines were stolen from the studio……….or were they?

Green Day was understandably upset about this loss of their newest album just as it was about to be in the finishing stages.  Green Day decided not to try to recreate the album because they were so upset, and Mike was quoted saying, “We had the backup tapes, but it just wasn't the same as the originals.”  [source]  According to people who worked with Green Day, the album had 20 tracks that were remarkably like Green Day’s album Nimrod and Warning.  So after the loss of the album, Green Day decided to “scrap” the Cigarettes and Valentines project and work on a new album.  This album resulted into American Idiot.

But is any of this even true or was it just a made up story by Green Day?  Was Cigarettes and Valentines just shelved and forgot about?  According to Billie Joe Armstrong this was a “Blessing in Disguise”.[source] The reason that we think that Billie made the statement is because this possibly might not have been Green Day’s “best work” and the band thought that they could do something much better in their eyes.  As Billie Joe put it, “It was good stuff but not maximum Green Day.” [source]  Maybe a clue that Green Day themselves didn’t really like the album. 

In 2007 Cigarettes and Valentines landed at number 13 in Rolling Stone’s “Lost Music”.  In the article it stated, “The supposed follow-up to their Shenanigans, the master tapes of this album were stolen from the studio in the very final stages of recording. Rather than rerecord the same album, Green Day started from scratch and ultimately produced American Idiot. So there was a happy ending. Oh, if you stole Cigarettes and Valentines, send them our way. We promise we won’t rat on you.”  [source]

Now, four years after American Idiot has been out we here at Green Day Land think that we would have heard something of Green Day’s supposedly “lost album”.  Today with internet technology at its height wouldn’t you think that we would hear some tracks off of Cigarettes and Valentines?  You would think that this album would be leaked on the internet by the person who stole it or sold it on e-bay to some lucky bidder.

Looks like we may never find out the real story behind Cigarettes and Valentines, but hopefully this article gave you a more in-depth look at the lost Green Day album, Cigarettes and Valentines. 

By:

Jimmy Douglas 

Note: album cover done by MusicalDeviant on GDC.