Green Day hoax: How a Canadian pop-punk band convinced the world that their fake album was the real deal
It's not very often that you get the chance to emulate your music idols. But that's exactly what the Canadian pop-punk trio Panicland managed to do when they released an LP titled 'Magnum Opus Of The Inglorious Kind' as an ingeniously plotted "fake Green Day album" viral scheme.
Despite looking and sounding alarmingly like the celebrated pop-punk band Green Day for the most part, the young members of Panicland decided to brazenly capitalize on their remarkable resemblance to Green Day by taking it one step further and actually impersonate their idols, who they have actually met in person and performed for! And the band's musical ploy was so spot-on and so well-orchestrated that they actually managed to convince thousands of Green Day fans around the world that they were the genuine article for months on end!
Making a fake Green Day album required weeks of meticulous plotting, careful consideration and artful timing. Conceptualizing it was one thing, but to actually pull off a hoax on this grand a scale and make the world think that Green Day was leaking new album details requires brainpower usually only fully utilized by criminal masterminds.
Panicland themselves didn't really think their bogus 'Magnum Opus Of The Inglorious Kind' album leaks would get much traction online. They meant it more as a creative exercise, a joke, a flight of fancy more than a direct homage to their heroes Green Day. The plan also relied on an untapped super-powered resource: Green Day's massive worldwide fanbase.
It was the diehard fans who actually latched onto the very first clues and minutest details that Panicland sprinkled into the interwebs, (starting from September 2019), from the cleverly Photoshopped album art and 'Stepbrothers' inside jokes to the social media teasers and actual clips of potential Green Day anthems (featuring an epic choir ensemble, no less!).
However, it was also the fans who quickly spotted that it was a hoax when they matched the fake Panicland clips to an actual video posted on Billie Joe Armstrong’s social media, where he met Panicland themselves! You couldn't have made this story up if you tried! Take a look at this stranger-than-fiction tale yourself here:
Even though the band did the social media experiment as an homage to their heroes, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool of Green Day, weirdly enough, the prescient album name seemed to foreshadow Green Day's actual album title - the upcoming 'Father Of All MotherF*****s', which the band announced would be released on February 7 this year. When quizzed about the 'Magnum Opus Of The Inglorious Kind' album title, the singer and guitarist Braedon Horbacio of Panicland confessed it was actually more of a Quentin Tarantino nod than anything else.
The infamous gore-loving director had directed a movie called 'Inglorious Basterds', and had actually shipped his last film 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' under the security title 'Magnum Opus'. So that explains a lot, then. No ESP to see here, move along. At the end of the day, what we got out of it is a whole lot of suspense, excitement and an EP's worth of Green Day-level songs from a very clever, talented band.
We suppose this will always be Panicland's endearing magnum opus to the world. Do check them out here, they're worth listening.