Hey I just heard some of green days new album. Its excellent. Here is a review.
The veteran smart alecks of Green Day have unearthed something even more elusive in music than the boy-band fountain of youth. With American Idiot, it has created the first punk-pop opera.
The band that once thought three minutes of music on anything more demanding on laziness and neuroses was indulgent, has created a concept album about war, international stress, conservative politics and seeing them all unfold in this super-saturated age of information.
Who knew Billie Joe Armstrong even watched CNN?
"Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the Alienation, where everything isn't meant to be OK," Armstrong sings on the album's title track, over an arsenal of guitar rips, beats from drummer Tre Cool and thick bass from Mike Dirnt.
Green Day then introduces the character Jesus of Suburbia in the first of two nine-minute epics broken into five-part melody chapters.
Prog-rock bands Rush and Yes must be shedding tears at the sentiment.
Between epics Armstrong introduces a second character, St. Jimmy, on a tune that sounds as raw as the lyrical description of this ultimate anti-authoritarian.
Clearly some interpretation is left to the listener, but this odd couple moves through American Idiot contemplating extreme action (Letterbomb), inner pain (Give Me Novacaine), heartache (Extraordinary Girl) and ultimately, death.
The brilliance is that all of this happens to the accompaniment of the quick-flit guitar chords and elementary drum rolls that made Dookie brilliant.
American Idiot's sociopolitical story line gives the songs new lyrical passion without robbing them of their mosh-pit allure.
It might be the long-sought formula for punk longevity. One element shared by almost all the pierced, peeved and performing is a short shelf life. Punk is built on a fuse that is either meant to explode, or fizzle as fame turns rage and hunger into luxury and comfort.
Green Day was no different. Follow-ups to Dookie, its Grammy-winning punk revival album, such as Insomniac and especially Nimrod, proved that the trio was more than a three-chord adolescent yowl in the night. What it didn't realize is that fans wanted even more yowls like early hits Basket Case and Welcome to Paradise.
American Idiot gets back to the hair-pulling, finger-waving style of Dookie, but its documentary-style message is making the 30-something members of Green Day kings once again. When the set finally switches gears for the ballad Wake Me Up When September Ends, its solemn message has a grand-finale strength this band couldn't have mustered previously.
In the past decade everyone from blink-182 to Yellowcard has tried to walk in Green Day's shredded shoes. It will be interesting to see who has the chops and chutzpah to emulate a punk record so beautifully crafted as American Idiot.
The veteran smart alecks of Green Day have unearthed something even more elusive in music than the boy-band fountain of youth. With American Idiot, it has created the first punk-pop opera.
The band that once thought three minutes of music on anything more demanding on laziness and neuroses was indulgent, has created a concept album about war, international stress, conservative politics and seeing them all unfold in this super-saturated age of information.
Who knew Billie Joe Armstrong even watched CNN?
"Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the Alienation, where everything isn't meant to be OK," Armstrong sings on the album's title track, over an arsenal of guitar rips, beats from drummer Tre Cool and thick bass from Mike Dirnt.
Green Day then introduces the character Jesus of Suburbia in the first of two nine-minute epics broken into five-part melody chapters.
Prog-rock bands Rush and Yes must be shedding tears at the sentiment.
Between epics Armstrong introduces a second character, St. Jimmy, on a tune that sounds as raw as the lyrical description of this ultimate anti-authoritarian.
Clearly some interpretation is left to the listener, but this odd couple moves through American Idiot contemplating extreme action (Letterbomb), inner pain (Give Me Novacaine), heartache (Extraordinary Girl) and ultimately, death.
The brilliance is that all of this happens to the accompaniment of the quick-flit guitar chords and elementary drum rolls that made Dookie brilliant.
American Idiot's sociopolitical story line gives the songs new lyrical passion without robbing them of their mosh-pit allure.
It might be the long-sought formula for punk longevity. One element shared by almost all the pierced, peeved and performing is a short shelf life. Punk is built on a fuse that is either meant to explode, or fizzle as fame turns rage and hunger into luxury and comfort.
Green Day was no different. Follow-ups to Dookie, its Grammy-winning punk revival album, such as Insomniac and especially Nimrod, proved that the trio was more than a three-chord adolescent yowl in the night. What it didn't realize is that fans wanted even more yowls like early hits Basket Case and Welcome to Paradise.
American Idiot gets back to the hair-pulling, finger-waving style of Dookie, but its documentary-style message is making the 30-something members of Green Day kings once again. When the set finally switches gears for the ballad Wake Me Up When September Ends, its solemn message has a grand-finale strength this band couldn't have mustered previously.
In the past decade everyone from blink-182 to Yellowcard has tried to walk in Green Day's shredded shoes. It will be interesting to see who has the chops and chutzpah to emulate a punk record so beautifully crafted as American Idiot.
