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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > May > 14 > Entry
CD Review: Green Day, ’21st Century Breakdown’
Green Day
“21st Century Breakdown” (Reprise)
B+
Green Day has been compared to a long list of bands. Back in the early 90s, they all but embodied the Bay Area’s high-energy pop punk, a mix of the Ramones’ formalism and the Buzzcocks’ devotion to a good hook.
When they went all major label with 1994’s “Dookie,” punk don Ian MacKaye referred to them and the Offspring as the Ugly Kid Joe’s of the ’90s, which might be the meanest thing said about a band IN the ‘90.
Then came a bunch of very professional rock records that made Green Day seem like any other bubblegrunge act, a total prom-theme hit single (“Time of Your Life”) and MacKaye looking prescient.
Oops. “American Idiot” (2004) made them seem political where they once seemed goofy, ambitious where they once seemed tossed off, and was an album that insisted you listen to it all the way trough, which seemed unwise now that we all lived in Downloadland. It sold 12 million copies worldwide.
Which made all of Generation X, who remembered “Dookie” as a fluke, say a collective, “Wait, what?”
Like the Kinks, who seemed to make conceptual rock opera after conceptual rock opera there for awhile, “21st Century Breakdown” feels like “American Idiot 2: Anarchic Boogalooo.”
Billie Joe Armstrong, clearly energized by his career’s surreal lease on life, makes “Breakdown” into pure pomp for now people, power pop overflowing with pianos and giant guitars and sweep and lost souls born on the Fourth of July all packed into 18 songs in 69 minutes - only a little longer than an episode of “Lost” and about as baffling. (The album also rhymes “American dream” and “American scream,” which probably should be illegal.)
Yoked to some sort of story about lovers, Armstrong still worships punk rock goddesses (“”Last of the American Girls”) is confused by religion (“East Jesus Nowhere”), wants to write annoying sub-Beatles ballads (“Last Night on Earth”) and knows how to knock out a killer anthem (“Know Your Enemy,” which will occupy what’s left of rock radio for the rest of the summer). Over and over, the songs aim high and meet their goals. Most banks can’t even do that these days.
Like Pete Townshend in the Who, he’s lucky to have rhythm section pals like Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool; those two haven’t lost a step. Like U2 in 2001, he’s lucky to be here and wants to do something wide-screen and out-sized with his time. Like almost nobody else in rock, he makes it seem like fun to be so ambitious, as if it’s something we should all want to be. No small feat, that.
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By Ricky Gremlin
May 14, 2009 12:39 PM | Link to this
Which made all of Generation X, who remembered “Dookie” as a fluke, say a collective, “Wait, what?”
Um, if you actually are a green day FAN it came as no surprise. If you were a regular Gen X bandwagonner, trendy poseur, then of course you would have moved on to the next flavor of the week (Limp bizkit and those other awful late 90’s early 00’s bands).
Green Day’s natural evolution is not surprising to those paying attention.