Album Review

Artist: Green Day

Album: 21st Century Breakdown



    It's been a while since we've seen the pop punk elder statesmen Green Day. After 2004's American Idiot, the band has kept their head low. Popping up briefly to do a song with U2, and to cover the John Lennon classic Working Class Hero. Now, in 2009, they resurface to bring us their most musically advanced, socio-politically driven, and altogether DIFFERENT album ever. It should be obvious to the listener that the band was going for more than just "another Green Day album". They pulled all the stops and went for a masterpiece.
    21st Century Breakdown opens up simply. The short, sweet melody of Song Of The Century, sounding as though it's coming from an intercom, leaves the listener trying to figure out where the album is going next. That's where old Green Day ends, and new Green Day begins. All of a sudden, we're in unfamiliar territory. The title track opens into it's simple but inspired 80's LA punk riff, with enough variations in timing and chord structure to keep the most staunch of musical critics happy. It quickly becomes apparent that frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's characteristically humble guitar playing has grown into a metal and alt. rock infused monster. The track's commentary quickly takes an angst-ridden political turn, Armstrong simultaneously mocking the "bastards of 1969" and his own generation for letting their movement drift into complacency. After that, the listener is hit full-frontal with the almost classically hardcore Know Your Enemy, the first single off of the album. Taking a similar angry, socially aware tone, the listener finds themselves tapping their toes whether they want to or not. From there on, the album goes from material that a fan of the band will find comfortably familiar, like the tracks !Viva La Gloria! and Murder City, to the experimental, like the almost industrial-sounding Christian's Inferno, or the angry, downright sacreligious East Jesus Nowhere. Even a Beatles-inspired piece, Last Night On Earth. After it's all said and done, the album finishes off in familiar territory with the tracks American Eulogy and See The Light.
    Despite their deviation from the familiar Green Day sound, this album is spectacular. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even feel the desire to overturn a squad car. Sometimes sweet, sometimes vicious, always skillfull. The SoCal pop punk pioneers have obviously grown as a band, and as musicians. From Armstrong's uncanny mix of punk riffs with blues, metal, jazz, alternative, and classic rock & roll fused together, abandoning his familiar three-to-five-power-chords/clear distortion sound to bring us something truly amazing. To bassist Mike Dirnt's fusion of "chugga-chugga" slap playing and advanced rock bass, adding the distinct Green Day bass sound and taking it a step further. To Tre' Cool's enthusiastic and precise drumming. Not to mention the number of studio musicians who assisted in acheiving this spectacle of modern rock. Love them or hate them, Green Day are back. And better than ever. Don't bother renting or borrowing this album. Buy it. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything comparable in modern popular music.