21st Century Breakdown [Explicit Lyrics]

I bought this album because I'm a Green Day fan. I have been for a little over fifteen years, since I was in my first year of high school. I'm getting older but have not abandoned the things I grew up with, Green Day being one of them. I remember feeling a slight sense of letdown when I first played American Idiot on my stereo. The political point to that album was not lost on me, even if the narrative was at times vague. I was more dissapointed in songs like "Blvd of Broken Dreams", "Wake Me Up When Sept Ends", and such. "Why must they turn this corner?" I asked myself. I can enjoy ballads and emotionally motivated songs, but these were just sap. On the other hand I found epic songs like "Jesus of Suburbia" and "Holiday", as well as standard Green Day fare like "American Idiot". I hoped that they'd follow it up with something more honest and in what I considered more their style. With the release of 21st Century Breakdown it was mostly a 21st Century Letdown.

Seeing and hearing Green Day these days, it has become apparent that after releasing International Superhits and Shenanigans, the band bookended roughly their first 10 years and set out to conquer the kids of today and maybe hope that the kids of yesterday, like myself, would just continue to follow (or, after less sales of Warning than expected, decided to bid us adieu). Pity. They used to be great.

This is not to say that musically the band is dead to me, or that I grudgingly buy their albums, but that 21st Century Breakdown feels like nothing more than a vague liberal rallying cry to a generation of kids set to generally bland songs with the occasional, clearly derivative, balladry. It borders on the disposable quality of much modern rock and pop punk music that populates airwaves and downloads today. I'm not adverse to a band expanding their musical horizons and I feel Green Day did a great job of that partially on Nimrod and fully on Warning. Even their successful leap to the mainstream for the breakout album Dookie marked a change from their old Lookout releases. But the last two albums, especially 21st Century Breakdown just feel too contrived and too desperate an attempt to latch themselves to legendary boomer bands like The Who and The Beatles (whom I think are great bands). Politically, and as a liberal myself, I find the politics of the album wanting of actual substance. The narrative does nothing to help the listener either; it is even more vague then American Idiot. Why must a story about a guy named Christian and a girl named Gloria lashing out against the crumbling society that begot them and then finding hope in the end take over 50mins to tell me just that. Nothing much more to that synopsis is added throughout the hollow poetic imagery and vague storyline. And then to top it off, the music contains maybe two-three songs I find actually positively stand out ("Christian's Inferno", "Murder City", and the title track off the top of my head). And even the standouts bare an uncanny resemblance to songs from the Green Day catalogue of yesteryear. The rest is mediocre with a few absolute stinkers ("21 Guns" (I can already see the slow dancing in high school gymnasiums) comes to mind).

If you loved American Idiot, you'll eat this up with a spoon. If you preferred their pre-American Idiot material, you likely can't help but feel a longtime friend in the process of drifting away from you. But in this case, that friend could remedy the situation. Unfortunately, Green Day don't seem to be in the mood or mentality of placating old fans like me anymore. Should I bother hoping for better next time? I really don't know.

Songs like 21st century breakdown, east jesus nowhere, the static age, american eulogy are truly brilliant. From this album, everyone knows know your enemy and 21 guns and they are awesome too. There are NO songs to be skipped when playing this CD.

It's hard to fathom that Green Day has actually been bashing away for over 20 years. Indeed, the cleverest thing they did was to make us think that in the early days they were just a bunch of 'dookie' flinging goofballs. That all changed when lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong gave us the anthemic "Good Riddance (time of your life)". We are now used to hearing a band that can rock out one minute ("American Idiot" and "Minority") and get deep and philosophical the next ("Wake Me Up When September Ends" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams") and that they are so deft at both is testament to them being one of the cleverest bands on the airwaves today.
This album is the band's second "Rock Opera" CD, following "American Idiot" and this is where I get a bit lost. As with the previous CD, it's hard to sometimes connect the dots and see a thread or path connecting the songs into a collective vision. I'm sure that a lot of sweat and toil went into creating this 3 act opus, but to be honest, the majority of the songs can stand alone and can also be enjoyed as such.
The first song to hit the airwaves was the hit single "Know Your Enemy" and to all it was the familiar sounds of the bombastic punk-inspired band we first came to know and love. Less than 2 months later, "21 Guns" was released, and by that time the album was already in the number one spot on music charts around the world. Green Day had done it again, commercial success without musical compromise; punk AND profit, if you will.
Looking at some of the other tracks, my favourite has to be "Peacemaker"; it's a Celtic/Gypsy combination that rocks hard in a party fashion, and the same can be said for "Viva La Gloria (Little Girl)". For punk rock fans, the band sounds a lot like like The Sex Pistols on "Christian's Inferno" and "Horseshoes and Handgrenades". Also, "East Side Jesus" and "Murder City" are throwbacks to the band's early "Dookie" days. For the record company, there should be no problem harvesting more radio hits off this CD; "Last of the American Girls" and "The Static Age" are prime cuts, being both listener friendly and catchy as ol' heck. It would take two articles to cover all the numbers on this disc; suffice it to say that each track on the CD falls into one of three categories; good, better or best.
Regarding this CD, Rolling Stone magazine wrote that it was "the most personal, emotionally convulsive record Armstrong has ever written" and indeed Billy Joe did say that the album deals with the selfish manipulation by government, religion, media and authority. So there you have it, the punk ethos is still alive and flourishing within the band, but guess what; their music is still as much fun as it was from day one!