Sellout, by Dan Ozzi

Blame it on Dookie. When Green Day’s 1994 album turned the Bay Area trio into world-straddling superstars, A&R men started looking in nightclubs and college basements for the next pop-punk sensation. What happens to a guitar-slinging anarchist when a very large check is waved under their nose? Ozzi looks at Green Day and ten other bands ranging from Blink-182 to My Chemical Romance to Against Me! for the answer. It’s a warped tour of booze, drugs, hook-ups, fistfights, MySpace, and sleeping on fans’ floors. Ultimately, though, Sellout is a tribute to the bands, the labels, and fans who heard something behind the dollar signs--the music that could be their lives.