Ah Green Day. A band I grew up with and still love to this day… Kinda. Everything up to their “Warning” album ranged from good to awesome, “Warning” was okay, and then they screwed up with the release of “American Idiot”. An album hailed by critics and the average person as being incredible, but was no good at all. Not only the worst Green Day album (yes, even compared to Shenanigans), but a complete change of style from “punk-rock” to “pop-rock” to get more “popularity”.

I hoped that the crappiness was just a phase, and that their following album would actually not be a big piece of shit. So here comes 21st century breakdown… a title that pretty much means nothing!

SO I’ll start this up with a mini-retrospective of the band, basically just talk about their albums, and then I’ll review the new album itself.

Read on and see if Green Day are back to their former greatness, or if being popular is more important (for them).

MINI-RETROSPECTIVE
1039/Smoothed out Slappy Hours

I’ll skip 39/smooth, since this includes 3 albums: 39/smooth (out in 1990), Slappy and 1000 hours(the last 2 are EPs). This album sported a whopping 19 tracks. It’s punk-rock at its purest. Included is low-quality recording, songs of a very repetitive nature and QUALITY. Here we have a Green Day that doesn’t really have a style and are still looking for it. Most of the songs have a similar sounds, but still there’s a few songs that stand out and that are very good. Not the best Green Day album, but still respectable. Random fact:for this album, Tré Cool is not the drummer, it’s John Kiffmeyer who quit the band not too long after the release the album.

Kerplunk

Here, Green Day were getting closer to finding their style and this gave birth to one of their best songs to date: Welcome to Paradise. The recording still lacked a bit quality, but the songs were quite fun to listen to and feature weird lyrics from time to time. Again, not the best Green Day album, but they definitely established their style and they were on the way to greatness. Also, this is the first album with Tré Cool, and the band’s main lineup hasn’t changed since.

Dookie

This is where Green Day really started being great. This album is filled with awesome songs. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is Green Day at it’s best. Burnout, Chump, Having a Blast, Longview, Pulling Teeth, Basket Case, She, Coming Clean, In the End, AND even a remastered version of Welcome To Paradise which sounds better than the original. This album is filled with great songs. And the songs I didn’t name? They’re badass too. There’s not one song on the album that’s bad. A great album, and the golden age of Green Day. They did get some popularity back then, but not at the same level as American Idiot.

Insomniac

Continuing from the awesomeness of Dookie comes Insomniac. Not exactly as good as Dookie, but it still had some really good songs. Armatage Shanks, Brat, Stuck With Me, No Pride, 86, Stuart and the Ave., Walking Contradiction, Westbound Sign are all great songs. Not as great as Dookie, but if I were to rank this album I’d say it’s the second best the band put out. Great quality, fun lyrics, fun music, overall great album.

Nimrod

This is where Green Day started getting in a minor slump. They still managed to have quite a few good songs here. Nice Guy Finish Last, Hitchin’ a Ride, The Grouch, All the Time, Platypus(i hate you), Uptight and Reject were all fine tunes. Overall it was an okay album, I still have fun listening to it, but I skip a few songs in it. Oh, and King for a Day is their major WTF song.

Warning

This is their most mainstream album, at least until American Idiot. The 3 popular songs in it were Waiting, Warning and Minority. Waiting was okay, Warning was kinda lame, and Minority was pretty fun. The album had some good songs too though. Church on Sunday was awesome, Castaway was pretty fun, Deadbeat Holiday was real good too and Minority was a fun song as well. The rest were average or meh. This was another step down towards lameness, but it was still a good album.

American Idiot

Before the release of this album, the only song I heard was American Idiot. An okay song, but not exactly up to the standards Green Day set with Dookie and Insomniac. And then the album came out. This felt like a major kick in the nuts for a Green Day fan. Instead of making good songs, they went and decided to do what was “popular” and “marketable”. And, in general (there are exceptions, of course), popular music SUCKS(proof: lady gaga). I’ll at least be honest and say that not ALL the songs suck. Jesus of Suburbia, despite being needlessly long and about 6 of those 9 minutes are no good, is a fun idea for a song, and some of the parts are actually good. Holiday was a fun song, a bit in the style of Hitchin’ a Ride, but not as good, but still the high point of the album. American Idiot was okay. St. Jimmy was average. But the rest of the songs, all of them, were downright horrible. But still, it managed to be a huge hit, and to this day I have no idea why.

Overall, Green Day went through all the phases. It went from an average band searching for their style, to setting their style and releasing awesomeness, to getting in a slump but still having a few good songs, to being completely lame. There’s a few other albums I could’ve mentioned. International SuperHits(released before American Idiot) was a compilation, but had 2 new songs that were respectable(Poprocks & coke was okay, Maria was really fun). Shenanigans is a compilation of songs that either didn’t appear at all (or appeared only in singles) that Green Day agreed weren’t good enough to put on the official albums, and it was quite a sucky album. Makes me wonder why they thought any of the songs American Idiot were worthy of being on an “official” release…

Really, I love Green Day and still listen to their old material, which to this day is some of the only punk-rock I still listen to(that and Offspring). They’re not perfect (see: American Idiot) but they truly have a lot of really good songs.

THE REVIEW!

So I set my expectations for this album REALLY low considering how bad American Idiot was. Their whole radical change of style really destroyed the band for me, and when I heard they were releasing a new album I wasn’t excited in the least (but, deep inside of me, I had a shred of hope that they realized their suckage with American Idiot and would go back to making good songs).
Now I gave it a few good listens, and I can come up with a verdict on the album. But first let’s go through all the songs one by one. I won’t go in large detail for each of them, but I’ll give a general impression.

The songs

Song of the Century – This song is nothing. It’s just a pointless intro thing(that appears a second time in American Eulogy).
21st Century Breakdown – So the album starts here. And what a weak start. The lyrics suck, the music is a mess, and it’s not very fun to listen to. Not the low point of the album, but it’s a bad song.
Know your enemy – The first single from the album. It’s been on the radio for a while. And it sucks. A lot. The lyrics are some of the worst ever produced by Green Day and the music sucks horribly, even without any guitar skills I could probably play it if I was arsed to touch my guitar again >_>
Viva la Gloria! – The beginning is stupid and pointless. After a minute the song changes style and sounds a lot better… Slightly better music and reworked lyrics could’ve made htis an interesting song. But it’s not.
Before the Lobotomy – Starts slow and boring, then gets… slightly faster paced but stays boring. It just sounds… completely dissonant. It just makes no sense in a musical point of view.
Christian’s Inferno – The lyrics are bad and unimaginative, the singing is… well… very lame and badly done(bunch of lame filters to made the voice sound lame really)… And the chorus is just them repeating “Christian’s Inferno”. Not good at all.
Last Night on Earth – Sounds… very lame, very cliché, the lyrics are really… standard love song crap that sucks and… it sounds like Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Yeah, this song is horrible.
East Jesus Nowhere – Starts with a fun little(slightly soft) rock intro, but never builds up to anything good. And the title sounds completely random. Sucks because it had potential to be a fun song. But potential alone is not enough.
Peacemaker – What the hell is this? I can’t classify what genre of music this is supposed to be. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s bad. Very bad.
Last of American Girls – I don’t know what to say about this one. It’s slow, boring, and the lyrics are bad. Nothing more to say.
Murder City – This is one of the few songs in the album I don’t really mind. Not a great song by any means, but it’s better than just about any other song on the album. Sounds a bit more like “normal” Green Day than the other songs… Still not the right style and the music needs a lot of work, but it’s okay.
Viva la Gloria? (little girl) – What with the lame song beginnings in this album? Well, this song starts horrible, of course, but after the lame start, it has a few fun parts. But the fun parts are short and interrupted by horrible music.
Restless Heart Syndrome – Well… yeah… another bad song. Not unexpected is it? Sounds like Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Wake Me Up When September Ends, and that’s never a good thing.
Horseshoes and Handgrenades – Sounds like a classic rock song. It’s not overly bad like a lot of the songs on the album. It just sounds a bit bland. Like a few other songs here, it sounds like it has potential but that potential is never attained. And it’s not Green Day.
The Static Age - This one actually gives of a bit of an older Green Day feel, and after all the crap in the album, this is a welcome addition. Actually, the chorus sounds just like “Church on Sunday” in the Warning album. But… It lacks the energy Green Day used to give off. But I’ll at least be honest and say that this one isn’t completely horrible.
21 Guns – Another one of those lame Boulevard of Broken Dreams kind of songs, and like the others it sucks. I won’t say more.
American Eulogy (Mass Hysteria/ Modern World) - I’m not sure what to think about this one. It sounds a bit like they were trying to get back to their old style, but it’s lacking… something… to be truly good. Some parts sound like Minority… a bit… And some parts of the song are just pathetic. It’s strange how one song can be… near one end of the spectrum and completely on the other at the same time. Can’t they make 1 song that’s all good in this album?
See the Light - Another song that has a classic rock feel to it. And again an example that Green Day trying to do something that isn’t their usual style isn’t any good. I did find it funny that the chorus had a bit of a “Shook me all night long” sound…

Overall
This… isn’t a very good album. It’s not an exaggeration calling it horrible. They took a completely different (and lame) turn with American Idiot, and they’re continuing towards that path with 21st Century Breakdown. It’s sad, because Green Day used to be a very good band. It did sound that they tried to go back to their old style in a few songs, but halfway through the making of the songs, they forgot what their old style was and just went with what “worked” for American Idiot. And through all that, none of the songs really sound like it’s Green Day. It’s safe to say the album sucks a BIT less than American Idiot, but not by much.

It does have a few “okay” songs, but 3 “okay” songs out of 19 is no good, and frankly I won’t listen to it again after posting this. The album as a whole is horrible.
And here’s the kicker: it’s 69 minutes long. Most of the songs are close to 5 minutes long. It’s already bad for a song to suck, but dragging it on for 5 whole minutes is not a good idea, and having 69 minutes of lame music in a row is just, well, lame..

So… Well, despite this not being a good album, it’s gonna be incredibly popular just like American Idiot. “Know Your Enemy” seems to be playing all the time on the radio, and I don’t doubt all the really lame songs in the album will be big hits too. Sad, but that’s the way the world works when it comes to music. Lame=popular.

jobocan Music, Rant, Review