Monday Melodies: The Network – “Money Money 2020” (2003)

Among the albums that I had planned to write about for The Memory Tourist, The Network’s “Money Money 2020” was high on that list. How could it not be, if just for the timely nature of pairing an album with 2020 in its title with the year 2020? The only question from here was when I would actually get around to it, feeling the need to find a moment when it was most timely: an odd proposition given that the band really only lasted two years over 15 years ago. Anyone who cared about the band had likely moved onto any other Green Day side project or, for those lifers, dealt with that bad new album that I keep hearing about.

Then, by some strange coincidence, the past few weeks have felt like every band from The Bush Administration coming out of the woodworks to deliver a vital new piece of music. There was System of a Down who makes me feel old by revealing that they hadn’t released a new album since I was in my Sophomore year of high school. Then, in a move that was even less expected, The Network announced their new song “Ivankkka is a Nazi.” In doing research, I discovered that they were planning to do a “Money Money 2020 Part II” sometime this year. Sure it had been 17 years, but I’m thankful that they’re sticking with the gimmick.

What “Ivankkka is a Nazi” ultimately did was give me my in for this article. I can’t say it was the greatest song I heard, but the idiosyncratic chords of that guitar felt like a perfect throwback. It’s a fun, upbeat song and everything that Green Day has been missing. After all, in 2004 they were leading the charge with “American Idiot.” In 2020, they were complaining about the authenticity of rock music which… OK, Boomer. I don’t like the new sounds either, but it’s better if you show and not tell.

What’s wild is that The Network feels like a blip of a band, existing in the shadow of “American Idiot” in every conceivable way. “Money Money 2020” came out the year before Green Day’s towering giant, and there were alleged shows where The Network played as an opener. It becomes crazy when you realize that this side project was designed as one of the oddest in-house fighting imaginable. It’s a delightful kind of antagonism and a perfect concept to keep the aging punk stalwarts fresh. Everything about the band was set to revitalize their careers, even if they refused to admit it.

Because if you’re anyone with a first-grade degree in sleuthing, you’ll be able to find all of the connections right off the bat. Listen to “Spike” and try to not hear Billie Joe Armstrong as his alter ego Fink. Someone with better ears will recognize lead singer Van Gough as Mike Dirnt, and somewhere in the backing track of songs like “Hungry Hungry Models,” you’ll hear Tre Cool as The Snoo. While the sound is completely different, where even the melodies differ enough that you can’t call them Green Day adjacent, the pieces come together slowly. Add in that they were on Adeline Records (Armstrong’s label) and was constantly slinging insults at Green Day, it became this delightful myth-making that nobody could really deliver, even under their dystopian wardrobe.

The Network has the gift of being the most obtuse Green Day side project in the band’s history. Whereas you can see through Foxboro Hot Tubs or Pinhead Gunpowder easily, there is this effort to even see what drew the band to make this. They were a new wave band that had traces of alien DNA. The album sought to be more in line with DEVO’s ethos, where the music was all concept. I can’t figure out what specifically The Network’s ethos is, but it’s clear that it’s a warped perspective of the modern world. Every song is simultaneously overtly political, dealing with our own corrupt relationship with money, and so ambiguous that you can’t figure out if it means anything. The opening five songs go by in such a blur that “discombobulated” is a perfect way to describe it.

The reason I like “Money Money 2020” is a similar reason why I admire Green Day’s trio of B-Side albums. It says so much about their geeky interests and their shameless commitment is impressive. You can’t help but be compelled to wonder why they were so committed to the idea, even if they knew that it wouldn’t last. I’m frankly surprised that The Network wasn’t more prominent given that 2/3 of the band was Green Day (including Jason White, a.k.a. Balducci) and the other two were the still unknown Captain Underpants and Z. Of course, that’s what makes it more special, that this one-off exists as a moment in time waiting to be discovered. You cannot prepare yourself for what lies ahead.

The whole album is its own universe of neon-glow madness. To watch the music videos is to see wildly distorted bright colors as the band performed. It felt like a rave version of Max Headroom, and the music sounded both punk and new wave. You could swear that they had influence from bands like Duran Duran or David Bowie but juiced up on caffeinated hooks and songs about buying drugs and nudie magazines. This was edgier, reflecting a future of music that is kind of reflected in the modern hyperpop aesthetic, but rarely with this much world-building, even if you can’t tell what world it’s building.

Frankly, the only clue that makes sense to establishing where this album comes from is The Misfits cover “Teenagers from Mars,” which comes at the end of the rerelease. Considering how many references to robots and mad scientists there are on here, it’s a bit futuristic. If they had the mind of someone like Gerard Way, “Money Money 2020” could’ve been a whole concept album with a comic book and music video-style narrative, making you understand the world of Van Gough and the gang. Instead, we just have to guess through this album and their existing live recording “Disease is Punishment.” It’s still fun, but you kind of want a little more to help you out. 

To be totally honest, the front half is much more interesting than the back. Maybe it’s because they feel more like throwaways, not really designed to be taken seriously. The opening number “Joe Robot” is especially fun, cleverly mixing the lyrics of the first verse into the second as an echoing refrain. The guitar is kooky, the drums sound a bit hollow, and the entire conversation about everything being a beautiful story that has a beginning and an end, one has to wonder what this is all about. Is this a narrative being presented out of order? Not only that but Van Gough has this deep, flat voice. Is it being run through a processor? Is it an affectation? There is so much that sounds off-kilter, and I think it only raises questions as to what The Network actually symbolizes as a group.

Things pick up with the next song, “Transistors Gone Wild,” where there’s more focus on anarchism as Fink sings “Give me murder, give me life, turn this city into dust man.” What does it all mean? By the time that it comes to a conclusion, the song hasn’t even reached 90 sings and we’re onto “Reto” (named for Green Day’s sound engineer) that describes a questionable character in great detail. These are fun dance songs with swinging hooks that begin to make you wonder what’s going on. What do these songs represent in their brief existence? It’s perfectly antagonistic with how little insight it offers, more establishing these portraits of technological absurdity. 

If anything, it’s setting up the mentality for the rest of the record which takes the listener on a journey. We start with sketches before shifting into a character study and eventually the dramatic destruction of humanity, presented in the slower, apocalyptic-heavy songs that end the album. By “Roshambo,” one has to imagine that the world is on the brink of collapse. Of course, one can read into this song as some commentary on addiction, or how a religion (maybe Scientology) numbs reality and leaves a reliance on an irrational kind of love. 

But before getting there, the “Spike” section of this album is easily the best. It’s not solely because it sounds like Armstrong made a belligerent dance record with his most wonderfully perverted lyrics possible. It’s because it has the most personality and awareness that you will either love or hate. It begins on “Supermodel Robots,” which has traces of Iggy Pop’s solo career in the drumming before laying on the keytar with an eerie ska melody. It even includes a toy car siren going off by the end that makes you realize the true vision of The Network. This is it.

It also has one of the best choruses on the whole album, managing to mix so many crazy ideas whether it be poetry or juvenile pranks. What follows may have been written by The Network, but I love more because it specifically reminds me of Thomas Pynchon:

So titty-twist a mad scientist

Oh, is this the toxic ride?

Wrap me up in a plastic bag and hang me out to dry

Artificial respiration! I need my medication!

Load me up and light a match

All systems down and out

It's down and out!

If I had to guess what everything before symbolized, it was establishing a series of characters and scenarios that give this digital world deeper meaning. It was a prelude to Spike’s journey from “Supermodel Robots” into greed and corruption. By “Spike,” it’s just a phone call in which he asks everyone to give him money because “I need a fix!” It’s the story of a junkie, establishing a new persona as Brenden/Spike that he can’t keep straight as he goes from drug dealers to his own parents. It’s comical and delightful, serving as another high point on the album, blending spoken word with a bridge that feels delusional as he declares “I’m a teenage rebel, I’m fucking bored!”

The next three songs feel like a downward spiral. “Love and Money” details how greed impersonalizes transactions. “Right Hand-A-Rama” is Spike just recounting how he bought a nudie magazine and loves what he finds inside. Not since “Longview” has Armstrong written a song so clearly one long euphemism about masturbation, and it’s especially fun with how the guitar plays almost against Fink’s driving vocals. It ends with “Roshambo,” which has heavy breaths and guitars and synthesizers that overwhelm the vocals, making it sound cerebral as we go into the head of a man given into the addictive nature of cheap thrills. 

While this continues on “Spastic Society” (maybe the most deliberate song about consumerism), the other remaining songs are among my least favorite. Maybe it’s because Van Gough’s vocals don’t sound appealing to me, or that the melody drags in ways that are supposed to be numbing and eerie, but I just don’t care. This is especially true of the closer “X-Ray Hamburger,” which I’m pretty sure is about being slaughtered by the system, or maybe aliens. We all are X-Ray Hamburgers. Unfortunately, the concept is much more enticing than the execution.

With that said, I am a sucker for oddball projects like this. I love that there’s a band willing to be this weird and against their own grain. In some ways, I see this as a trial run for Green Day’s “American Idiot” and “21st Century Breakdown” records, which took concept album to a more realized vision. Even then, they’re nowhere near as weird as “Money Money 2002” and I think that only benefits this record. It makes you latch onto the details, the rich atmosphere of synth-pop, and espionage inside the punk mentality that drives the best moments. 

This isn’t a record that will change anyone’s life, but I am sure there will be a subset of fans who like it, as I do, and am curious to wonder whatever happened to them. Now in 2020, I am happy to know that the people who created The Network still care to make this project a reality. I love the joke that they predicted the future so well that they’re even wearing masks. I wonder what happens if they release a new record in the remaining two months. I can only imagine that I will be geeking out about it, wanting to find how all of the pieces connect. Maybe they won’t. All I know is that I’m looking forward to seeing how Green Day responds to this band getting rich off of their uncanny similarities.