Billie Joe Armstrong - No Fun Mondays (LP)

Billie Joe Armstrong’s lockdown project felt like a lifeline when the world went quiet. He started dropping a cover each Monday from home at the start of 2020, a loose series he cheekily dubbed No Fun Mondays, and by the end of the year he bundled the best of them into a proper album on Reprise Records. What could have been a tossed-off quarantine curio instead plays like a fast, heartfelt mixtape from a mate with impeccable taste, full of power-pop sparkle, punk bite and the kind of song choices that tell you plenty about the shelves in his lounge room.

The opener, a chiming take on I Think We’re Alone Now, sets the tone. Armstrong leans into the Tommy James melody with unforced charm, sprucing it up with crunchy guitars and that nasal bite Green Day fans know by heart. It’s tight, bright and just ragged enough to feel human. You can hear the home-recorded spirit in the air, yet the mix still pops on speakers, which makes the No Fun Mondays vinyl a tidy spin if you’re the sort who judges a cover on how it jumps from your turntable.

The record works because the picks feel personal. He salutes San Francisco roots with a charged run at Corpus Christi by The Avengers, spitting each line like a street-corner sermon. War Stories, from Belfast punk outfit Starjets, is a gem too, a reminder that punk nostalgia can still kick if the chorus is strong and the guitars snarl in the right places. Kids in America is pure sugar-rush fun, less neon than the Kim Wilde original but springy enough to make you grin. There’s also You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory, a Johnny Thunders classic that Armstrong treats with the tenderness it deserves. He keeps the arrangement lean, which lets the ache in the lyric ring through without turning it into a museum piece.

The warmest moment lands with That Thing You Do!, recorded as a tribute to Adam Schlesinger not long after his passing. Armstrong keeps the rubber-band swing of the original intact, but adds a touch more crunch and a vocal that edges from wistful to beaming by the final chorus. It’s the sort of cover that reminds you how tight Schlesinger’s writing was and why power-pop obsessives will argue about bridge placement for hours. Manic Monday also makes the cut, and it features Susanna Hoffs on a remote duet that feels like a friendly wink across the wires. Armstrong is obviously stoked to be sharing a mic with a Bangles icon, and that energy radiates through the performance.

There are smaller delights tucked around the corners. He sings in Italian on Amico, and it’s delivered with such easy affection that you don’t need to follow every word to catch the vibe. The sequencing moves briskly, which helps the record play like one long, caffeinated set rather than a playlist of leftovers. You can almost picture him in the garage with a couple of Gretsches and a battered kit, coffee cooling on an amp, chasing the joy in a chorus until it lands just right.

Part of the charm here is how little grandstanding there is. Armstrong doesn’t try to reinvent these songs, he just frames them with crisp guitars, driving drums and vocals that smile without winking too hard. The fidelity sits in that sweet spot between radio-ready and living-room real, which suits the project’s origin story. It also means the album breathes on a decent stereo. If you’re crate digging in a Melbourne record store, this will jump out between the big-ticket reissues and the odd punk comp, a friendly reminder that covers can be a love letter rather than a flex.

For fans who track Billie Joe Armstrong albums on vinyl, this sits nicely alongside Green Day curios and side projects, and it makes a strong case for the simple pleasure of a great song played well. The sleeve notes nod to the weekly drops that kept people company in 2020, and the performances hold up now that life’s noisier again. If you’re looking to buy Billie Joe Armstrong records online, keep an eye out for No Fun Mondays vinyl because it turns those scattered Mondays into a single, satisfying spin. And for anyone stocking up on vinyl records Australia wide, this is a neat little time capsule of a strange year, full of heart, hooks and a fan’s sense of history.