SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The band Green Day is celebrating an anniversary.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASKET CASE")
GREEN DAY: (Singing) Do you have the time to listen to me whine?
DETROW: Thirty years ago, they broke into the mainstream with their album, "Dookie."
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
But instead of a remastered deluxe reissue, Green Day is doing the opposite. They are rereleasing the album as 15 demastered singles - 15 songs on 15, well, let's just say things.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASKET CASE (DOOKIE DEMASTERED VERSION)")
GREEN DAY: (Singing) It all keeps adding up, I think I'm cracking up. Am I just paranoid? Huh yeah, yeah, yeah.
DETROW: In the case of the hit, "Basket Case," it is a Big Mouth Billy Bass, the animatronic rubber novelty fish. And it's not the only singing motorized animal toy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Teddy Ruxpin) Well, would you look at that. It's time for me to sing "Chump," my favorite track on "Dookie."
(SOUNDBITE OF GREEN DAY SONG, "CHUMP (DOOKIE DEMASTERED VERSION)")
SHAPIRO: A Teddy Ruxpin stuffed bear plays a cassette, and, yes, his eyes and mouth sing with the music.
DETROW: And no, the audio fidelity is not what you would call good for any of these obsolete formats, and that's kind of the point of putting a song on an answering machine or an electric toothbrush or a player piano roll or, straight out of the 1890s, a wax cylinder.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN I COME AROUND (DOOKIE DEMASTERED VERSION)")
GREEN DAY: (Singing) 'Cause you know where I'll be found when I come around.
SHAPIRO: The demastered singles are being sold through random drawings. The window to enter the drawings has closed, so sorry, you can't get "Welcome To Paradise" on a Nintendo Game Boy cartridge anymore...
(SOUNDBITE OF GREEN DAY SONG, "WELCOME TO PARADISE (DOOKIE DEMASTERED VERSION)")
SHAPIRO: ...But the recordings are streaming online if you ever need a little eight-bit pop-punk party.
(SOUNDBITE OF GREEN DAY SONG, "WELCOME TO PARADISE (DOOKIE DEMASTERED VERSION)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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