Green Day, '21st Century Breakdown' (Reprise)
Billie Joe Armstrong is still deeply, elaborately bummed -- sorry, Obamaniacs!
By Steve Kandell 05.17.09 12:00 PM
It only follows that a band whose breakthrough hit contemplated the virtues of lazing around on a couch and jerking off would go on to craft an apocalyptic concept album condemning institutionalized lethargy. In 1994, Billie Joe Armstrong whined, "I got no motivation"; in 2009, he's shouting, "Gimme gimme revolution," rallying a doomed generation to save themselves, or to at least put down the Wii long enough to acknowledge that they need saving.
For 20 years, Green Day have tried to navigate the chasm between their punker-than-thou Gilman Street roots and their everydude appeal. The band's post-Dookie output yielded diminishing returns until 2004's American Idiot married proggy architecture -- it's an opera! -- and meaty pop-punk hooks to W.-bashing screeds for an unexpected blockbuster that, ironically, pushed Green Day from snarky navel-gazing toward a rancorous agitprop that even their most orthodox detractors might begrudgingly appreciate.
Conventional wisdom dictates that the follow-up, even one that comes five years later, should be a gritty grab for street cred. Instead, Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool push Idiot's conceits even further on 21st Century Breakdown, a slick, class-obsessed, 70-minute, 18-song, three-act cycle that trades Bush-era indignation for Obama-era resignation. So much for HOPE and CHANGE.
There's some stretching stylistically: two different songs called "Viva la Gloria!" open with piano, while the lush, mid-tempo "Last Night on Earth" and "Restless Heart Syndrome" ape mid-period Beatles, or maybe just Oasis. (Armstrong has bemoaned the cultural ubiquity of "Good Riddance [Time of Your Life]," yet he keeps rewriting that song.) If the Cars did a tune about impending nuclear winter, it might sound like "Last of the American Girls." Yet most tracks that start off on unfamiliar terrain generally return to barre-chord-and-bashing core, almost as if Green Day are antsy about not sounding like Green Day for too long. The quasi-mariachi rave-up "Peacemaker" is an argument for committing to that sense of abandon. But for an album-length rock opera about staving off the end of days, 21st Century Breakdown feels terribly comfortable.
The considerable sheen of Butch Vig's production lightens the gloomy antimodernity, but no song here commands your attention like "American Idiot." "Horseshoes and Handgrenades," with Armstrong's clarion call "I'm not fucking around!" comes closest, but the energy seems directionless. There was humor in Green Day's vitriol last time around, and that's sorely missed here. Maybe it's just easier to write about anger than fatigue; Cormac McCarthy's The Road didn't have a lot of jokes in it, either. Certainly, any stick-it-to-the-man rhetoric runs the risk of being compromised when that rhetoric makes its national debut before the NCAA finals, as did sloganeering lead single "Know Your Enemy," but Green Day are hardly the first well-intentioned megastars to rage within the machine.
Ultimately, the question isn't whether multiplatinum success has cost Green Day the right to protest, only whether that protest feels vital. It's hard to know what to make of taunts like "You're a sacrificial suicide / Like a dog that's been sodomized." As with many good punks before him, Armstrong is better at voicing gripes than offering solutions, which makes him a tricky choice to lead a revolution. If we're gonna come with you, you gotta tell us where we're goin'.
WATCH: Green Day, "Know Your Enemy"
There are more than 30 Green Day videos online at www.comcast.net/greenday right now (May 7th) and additional videos will be posted over the next several weeks. Clips include songs from the new album, live concert footage, interviews and classic Green Day videos. They're also all available on Comcast On Demand.
i think i'm going to give this one a little more time to ~simmer in my head before i give my offish opinion. initially i was sort of shocked that they recycled the guitar on letterbomb and stuck it into viva la gloria (and even a little bit of murder city, these tracks sound extremely similar to letterbomb off of american idiot.) and i kept on hearing the same melody from church on sunday while listening to the static age (srsly, you have to listen to the chorus) the song east jesus nowhere is fucking awesome to say the least, exactly the type of sound i want from green day. horseshoes and handgrenades is also one of my favorites so far. yah so like i said, i giving this one a little more time to grow before i make any more strong comments. it looks promising, ven though i've listened to it about 3 or 4 times on my ipod while i'm supposed to be sleeping lol.
The CD is rubbish and so is this band.
Devon Sartori, Toronto
to Devon_Sartori GREEN DAY IS AWESOME YOU STUPID ASSHOLE! You're literally the stupidest person on earth! I'd like to hear the crap you listen to...bet it's not even one-billionth as good as Green Day! You're rubbish and so is your name! KARMA WILL OWN YOU! Just watch. It will.
What St. Jimmy said... except a little more witty and creative
I've mega-dosed on Green Day since I was a crowd-surfin 18 year old at Lolapolooza '94. I've been made fun of for my 15 year long association with this band, but have held my head high through-out. I gotta say, this review nails 21st Century Breakdown on the head. Well done, Steve Kandell. While I believe that Billie can write pop-hook circles around John Lennon, this record perplexes even myself. I've been listening to this record for weeks trying to verbalize my thoughts on it. This review is exactly how I feel about it. This record taps into Warning! quite a bit (which I love by the way), but at least Warning! felt like they were being true to themselves. This is an over-produced pile of indulgence. I hear Green Day trying to be every one BUT... and that's just weird. Right now I'm still mega-dosing on 21st Century... but in time I know that I will rank it last in their catalog. I can't even bring myself to purchase the actual 'physical' CD, and that's a first for me.
Hands-down best track: "Peacemaker"
p.s. Steve, you forgot to mention the parrallels between "East Jesus Nowhere" and Marilyn Manson's "Disposable Teens". Uncanny.
u r rubbish....make a good use of urself....
The reviewers comment of raging within the machine, is very true indeed: Greenday have well and truly sold out (They did a while ago) and the regime they so happy oppose, is one that they themselves have become a part of, and profit from.
Does this really matter? No. Every band has to sell out sooner or later, and doing so just means that more people will hear the music. It's true that the lyrics mean so much less than they would have done if it were not for this, but the songs are still strong, well written, and varied.
It's a damn good album overall, it's just a bit hard to believe that Billie truly belies what he sings.
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