American punk rock band Green Day is celebrating a new milestone for one of their major album releases, but how they're doing so has caught many fans' attention. The band's first-ever label debut album, Dookie, turned 30 years old this February, and to mark this momentous achievement, they have demastered the album featuring 15 tracks available in 15 interesting formats.
Dookie: Demastered was announced across multiple social and digital platforms, which accompanied a trailer and an official website that provided details on how fans can get their hands on the album's demaster. Some of the album's "obscure, obsolete, and otherwise inconvenient formats" include a plush teddy bear, a toothbrush, and a Game Boy cartridge.
The multi-time Grammay Award-winning punk rockers announced on 9th October 2024 that a re-release of their first released album with a major label, Dookie, is now available as a demaster for 15 different formats. One of these 15 formats is a Game Boy cartridge, of which the track "Welcome to Paradise" is featured, and fans can get this demastered track on the cartridge for $39.
They can listen to the track on the DookieDemastered website, and if they wish to own it, they can enter the drawing of which only "25 hand-numbered editions available" to be shipped out to the US within two weeks. Sure, this unusual decision not to re-release the 1994 album in more traditional formats is unheard of; however, since Dookie "isn't a usual album," the band opted to do something unique to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
While all the album's tracks have not been re-recorded for the album's 30th anniversary, instead, it "has been meticulously mangled to fit on formats with uncompromisingly low fidelity, from wax cylinders to answering machines to toothbrushes." This does come with a few setbacks by sacrificing "not only sonic quality, but also convenience, and occasionally entire verses," what the band ended up with is the album's demastered version with 15 tracks, each appearing on one of 15 formats, "the way it was never meant to be heard."