21st Century Breakdown

[DaMadFiddler]

Who has heard the new Green Day album? Any thoughts?

It came out last Friday. I got it over the weekend, and have been listening to it as "work music" while I refurbish furniture. (My girlfriend and I moved to a new house a couple of weeks ago, and we bought a bunch of oak furniture for the living room really cheaply... but some of it needs a little work). It's good work music.

First off: no, it's not as good as American Idiot. It's not quite as tight thematically, a few of the songs just feel like "generic Green Day" filler material, and it often takes itself too seriously. However, it is a good album.

Green Day has proven surprisingly adept at concept albums, and 21st Century Breakdown is an interesting piece of work... it also shows quite a bit more variety than a lot of their past albums. Probably my biggest complaint about Green Day is that they don't vary their sound enough; if you put on one of their albums and don't really pay attention, it can be hard to tell where one song ends and the next begins. However, the new album brings a wider variety of styles than I'm used to hearing from them. It's got more of a pop sound than usual, too--even for Green Day--which you may or may not like, but it does create an interesting contrast with the distinctly pessimistic and dystopian subject matter of the songs.

My two favorite songs are "Peacemaker" and "¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl)" from Act II. Yes, the album is divided into three acts and a prelude. They're supposed to represent the progressive degeneration of culture and society over the course of the Bush administration, from the propaganda machine building up military hype and the forcing of evangelical social values, to the resulting fear and hate and reactionism, and finally ending up mired in the smoking aftermath. If you're strongly conservative, and take offense to the popular characterization of the Bush reign, you probably will not like this album.

Any other thoughts from people who've heard it?

[not just souLLy now]

I heard Know Your Enemy and it sounded worse than anything on American Idiot, which was a really shitty album. I used to have a lot of time for that band but they really are 2 dimensional now.

[Luriden]

I liked Warning. All their other stuff sounds the same to me. They don't have enough variety to hold my interest enough to make it through a whole album.

[melancholy]

My problem with Green Day is I listen to them as if they are still Green Day. Nimrod was really the last Green Day album I really loved, and after that I pretty much stopped listening. American Idiot isn't bad, it's just not what I wanted it to be. Obviously, though, they must have gotten something right because their following now is bigger than it ever was with any of the previous albums (or at least since Dookie).

Now, I also have the problem that going back to listen to old Green Day bores me. I thought Dookie was the greatest album ever created 15 years ago, but listening to it today, the thing is so repetitious that I can't even pay attention to it after the first 3 songs.

I still love Nimrod, though.

[DaMadFiddler]

Now, I also have the problem that going back to listen to old Green Day bores me. I thought Dookie was the greatest album ever created 15 years ago, but listening to it today, the thing is so repetitious that I can't even pay attention to it after the first 3 songs.

That's actually part of what I like about this album. I remember when Dookie came out, and everyone loved it, and it was inescapable. But like I said above, it kind of all sounds the same. There are some more-of-the-same tracks on 21st Century Breakdown, but they are at least starting to experiment with more diversity in their sound. About half the tracks sound like American Idiot leftovers, but the rest mix it up some, and add a bit of variation. It doesn't just all run together like a lot of Green Day albums tend to do.

The album starts off kind of full of itself, which may turn you away... you have to get past the first few tracks if you want to enjoy it.

Here are the two songs I mentioned earlier, which I'd recommend listening to:

[S. Thompson]

It's an incredibly ambitious album; there's no doubt in my mind it might be their most ambitious. I like it over American Idiot already, but I don't know how to stack it up to their catalog of work since this album feels less like Green Day than the last one did. I do believe I prefer the more "collection of songs" albums from Green Day (Nimrod and Warning are wonderful, I think).

As for my personal choices from the new album, I recommend Before The Lobotomy, Last Night on Earth, Murder City, and Restless Heart Syndrome. It definitely feels, to me at least, like this album is NOT fan-service to the Hot Topic kids who, after the release of the last album, became super fans of the band.

Butch Vig is a great producer and you can tell her worked his magic on this album (this album is not stripped down and raw - there are layers and layers). I definitely think their next record should come out in the next two years and take them back to the late 90s/early 2000s.

Either way, I wasn't disappointed by the album. Know Your Enemy is probably the worst song too, in my opinion. Do not judge the album based on this track. I guess it was an okay single choice, but it's really not representative of the material on the album.

- Fuzmeister

[Jeeba Jabba]

I dont think I could bring myself to listen to it. This band was *decent* at best with Dookie. The single American Idiot is the biggest flag of a high-civilization's self-abuse but with complete ignorance of its own nature. These guys suck a lot.

[|darc|]

It's pretty good. There are some really good tracks on it, but sometimes it does suffer from the "don't know when one song ends and another begins" syndrome. I put it on in the background while doing other stuff and every once in a while I'd stop to think "oh, well, whatever's going on right now is pretty good."

I didn't really like American Idiot much, though I listen to Dookie and International Superhits often.

[DaMadFiddler]

As for my personal choices from the new album, I recommend Before The Lobotomy, Last Night on Earth, Murder City, and Restless Heart Syndrome. It definitely feels, to me at least, like this album is NOT fan-service to the Hot Topic kids who, after the release of the last album, became super fans of the band.

Interesting. Murder City is one of the ones I was putting in the "American Idiot leftovers" category. Restless Heart Syndrome is good, but it sort of reminds me of ELO's album "Time." (And for some reason, "Time" always makes me think of Bladerunner. I think it's because of the song Yours Truly 2095).

Seems like you like the slower stuff the best, overall....

[Eviltaco64X]

I actually liked them until American Idiot came out.
I liked them for what they were, and they felt different after Warning.

[S. Thompson]

As for my personal choices from the new album, I recommend Before The Lobotomy, Last Night on Earth, Murder City, and Restless Heart Syndrome. It definitely feels, to me at least, like this album is NOT fan-service to the Hot Topic kids who, after the release of the last album, became super fans of the band.

Interesting. Murder City is one of the ones I was putting in the "American Idiot leftovers" category. Restless Heart Syndrome is good, but it sort of reminds me of ELO's album "Time." (And for some reason, "Time" always makes me think of Bladerunner. I think it's because of the song Yours Truly 2095).

Seems like you like the slower stuff the best, overall....

Restless Heart Syndrome feels so epic - it reminds me of Pink Floyd's The Wall for some reason... no idea why. Last Night on Earth reminds me of latter day Beatles or, more specifically, Lennon's (Just Like) Starting Over from Double Fantasy.

I do actually prefer the slower, melodic songs on this album. Then again, my favorite Green Day album is Warning, so I suppose I'm not the typical Green Day fan.

As a sidenote, did you know Murder City apparently almost didn't make the album? It was one of the last songs written, I believe, and deals with the Oakland riots in January 2009.

Also, ELO is supremely underrated!

- Fuzmeister