Pros: Developed all round content-wise and engrossingly sharp.
Cons: 'Filler' material present in a number of tracks.
The Bottom Line: It’s double-edged, shiny around edges with clean voice targeted to appease mainstream, yet nostalgic punk traces visible in bitterness, vocal jeering and turbulence place it in a high standard indeed.
blackstar40's Full Review: American Idiot [PA] by Green Day
Green Day are being brave in recording American Idiot. For a start, they’re risking losing whatever punk credibility they had left, with four singles off the album tearing up the charts and making the first major hits for Green Day in about three years.
So the question comes down to – have they aged well? With smarter lyrics (it’s amazing to see how different their style was, say, back on Dookie) and maturer songwriting, along with guitars that add to the polished effect, the answer seems to be yes.
The title track ‘American Idiot,’ which is first off the bat, would be a lot more believeable if it came from a band that weren’t so obviously American. As it is, the track is guilty of at least a little hypocrisy, even as the band desperately announce halfway through ‘I’m not a part of the redneck agenda!’ Nevertheless, it’s a cynic’s heaven, although the lyrics (that feature such complex words as ‘subliminal,’ ‘hysteria’ and ‘propaganda’) are occasionally hard to catch amid the muted vocals of the verses.
There’s not a lot going on behind them either – the simple riff repeated again and again at the end of every line offers little backing – but this only exemplifies the emanating energy. Not surprisingly, it went top 10 everywhere but America.
Presumably to live up to the tile of the ‘punk opera’ the liner notes pronounce it to be, the album consists of 2 tracks broken down into 5 mini-segments that make up the whole. The first of these is ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ (Track 2), the second ‘Homecoming’ (12). The sections flow into each other smoothly, but altogether it’s purposeless and overlong, and the clearest thing that comes out of Billie Joe’s mouth is him telling us more than once on both the afore-mentioned that he doesn’t care. One feels like replying, then why did you bother?
‘Holiday,’ though is the albums wittiest standout, and is nothing less than boisterous. The punkish lyrics are at their most intelligent (‘Pulverize the Eiffel towers / Who criticize your government... Kill all the fags that don’t agree’), complimented as always by Armstrong’s defiant drawl. It progresses into ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams,’ the next musical chapter in the diary, alternately with themes of isolation running high, although ultimately the fact it ruled the airwaves for some seven weeks may make the claim Green Day are ‘sellouts’ all the more justifiable.
‘Are We the Waiting’ carries the previous track’s wistful feeling and takes it a step further, the depressed voice of Billie Joe Armstrong echoing, guitar work admirably tailing the melody and a crowd chant topping off the chorus.
‘St Jimmy’ is the opposite, pushing itself to the limit with it’s racing pace, unfortunately serving only to drown the already claustrophobic lyrics in noise. The morale is it suffers from it’s own speed.
Once more mellowed, ‘Give Me Novacaine’ enters displaying innocent acoustic strumming and the lead singer singing sweetly until the chorus. The growling edge returns in moderation and so do the electric guitars and from then the song switches styles throughout. This gives way to ‘She’s A Rebel,’ and this tries hard but really can’t disguise the fact it’s typical Green Day which wears itself thin quickly.
‘Extraordinary Girl’ and ‘Letterbomb’ also lack the originality needed to make them unforgettable, currently just slightly rearranging everything we’ve already heard into separate tracks. As if to reinforce this, ‘Letterbomb’ gives a shout out to the Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy that have already come to pass.
The band outdo themselves though with ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends.’ Although the track itself is reasonably simple ‘Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when september ends’ and accompanied only by an acoustic guitar for most of it’s entirety, it carries an anti-war message that resides a lot deeper beneath the mindless pop-punk (hello, Simple Plan) it might first appear to be. This can be difficult to understand, as it’s almost cryptically concealed, but the liners give a clue by dating the song September the 10th, which of course is the day before the fateful 9/11 and the video clip offers still more clues to the meaning, while the song itself communicates a sense of yearning and sadness that is genuinely achieved to make it all the more immersing.
After the nine minute play of ‘Homecoming,’ last of all is ‘Whatsername,’ a somewhat vague little afterthought: ‘I can remember the face but I can’t recall the name’ Armstrong ponders. What intensifies it’s appeal is the hanging phrase at the closure ‘Forgetting you but not the time’ and the reflection that has characterized American Idiot’s entirety finally comes full circle.
Heavy: Fast guitars but no, you’re looking in the wrong place
Swearing: Yes
The first original album since 2000 from modern rock superheroes Green Day. American Idiot is one of the most anticipated and controversial albums of ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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