This double lp includes an additional lp with 8 rare or never previously released live tracks from the Prague stop of the insomniac world tour on March 26, 1996, and an etched b-side.
Insomniac is the followup to Green Day’s massive breakthrough Dookie, and as classic as Dookie is, Insomniac is even better. Dookie can start to sound too bubblegummy after a while, but Insomniac manages to deliver plenty of singalong punk songs without falling into that same trap. It was also recorded better, and the band played better. They hit the studio in December 1994, just weeks after wrapping up their nearly-year-long tour schedule supporting Dookie, and they were unsurprisingly on fire at this point. They had just spent months playing tons of shows to the biggest crowds of their career (including Woodstock ’94), which was all the prep they needed to quickly bang out a rock-solid followup to an instant classic.
The collage on the album cover was created by Winston Smith and is called God Told Me to Skin You Alive, a reference to the Dead Kennedys song "I Kill Children". Interestingly enough, the cover art contains an image (the dentist) that was originally used in a collage featured in the inside cover art of Dead Kennedys' album Plastic Surgery Disasters. Smith knew Tré Cool from Green Day's time at Lookout! Records and told Tré that if he ever needed album artwork that he should call him. The cover art features several hidden images: a naked woman, 3 fairies, and several other ghostly faces in the flames. There are also three skulls on the entire album cover and back; one for each member of Green Day. One of the skulls requires you to view the piece at an angle. The hidden skull is taken from Hans Holbein's 1533 painting 'The Ambassadors'. Green Day's version, however, is slightly different from the original, with the woman holding Billie Joe's sky blue Fernandes imitation Stratocaster rather than an acoustic guitar.
