Green Day – 21st Centruy Breakdown Review » The Music Mag

Green Day – 21st Centruy Breakdown Review

Everytime I tell people that Green Day are punk for kids whose balls haven’t dropped yet, I am assaulted with kicked shins, whining and cries of “But what about Dookie!?” or “that one where they’re all watching each other on the video” and I respectfully tell them to shut up. I didn’t say it was bad, it’s just not punk. Punk for people that don’t want to clean their room maybe but punk? Punk in the sense of ripping it all up and starting again? Absolutely not. However, at their mid-90s best, they were crafting vital pop-rock songs and were the harsher edge to Weezer and their perfectly tuned pop songs. Now, Green Day are straddling a gigantic wave of popularity and are releasing the follow-up to American Idiot, an album that made them so famous they could release the exactly same thing again, call it a sequel and still stay hugely popular.

Funnily enough, they practically did just that. American Idiot’s eponymous lead single was incredible; a two and a half minute blast of tightly concentrated rock with a catchy hook, an even catchier chorus and more raw passion and emotion than anyone else in the mainstream at that time. It stood out and for good reason, it was bloody good. It was so good that it made everyone forget that the rest of the album was shit. It should have been called “Hooray for Power Chords” since they were more common on that album than shoe-horned metaphors, Billie Joe’s “matured” voice sounded like a robot trying to sing Motown and the less said about their wanders into rock ballad territory, the better. All in all, it sounded like a band trying to sound epic and failing.

21st Century Breakdown has most of the same flaws; the songwriting still has an obsession with power chords and rolling drums, which is fine as a stand-alone thing but after 15 songs, it gets far too tiring. On the plus side, Billie Joe’s voice has genuinely matured this time around, carrying more emotional gravitas than before and it helps a lot of songs rise up above bland trudgery. However, the songwriting is still flimsy, like a balcony made of crackers and any neat little ideas are lost behind the American Idiot formula. Which is a dreadful shame as the production is excellent; glossily done but without being constricting, each instrument is given a chance to breathe, the band sound incredibly tight and when it needs to sound angry and passionate, it succeeds amazingly.

However, the concept of the album itself is so 70s, it should come with a free LSD sample; two people called Gloria and Christian embark on a wonderful journey through Post-Bush (the President, not the band) America, both wildly different but utterly dependent on each other. They’ve been scorned by religion, the state and it’s all utterly pointless and shoehorned in and makes about as much sense as American Idiot did. It’s in three acts – “Heroes and Cons,” “Charlatans and Saints” and “Horseshoes and Handgrenades.” but it’s all rendered pointless on the surface as A), they all sound like bad emo bands and B), they all sound the same anyway so unless there’s a profound shift in lyrics, the acts conceit seems redundant.

But the lyrics are, arguably, one of the high points of the album. Billie Joe has probably reached his peak as a lyricist and on this album, he manages to be poignant and charming throughout, stopping only occassionally to shop at the cheese counter before turning round works of genuine good quality. I suppose it helps that religion is an easy topic to pick holes at and it’s all about as subtle as shooting a priest, then beating the remaining life out of him with a Science textbook. But, they are peppered with an admirable anger and it lends the album some real emotion and passion that is sorely missing in popular rock music.

However, it’s not in the quick rock bursts that the anger is conveyed. Instead, it’s when Green Day slow things right down and explore their more harmonic and melodic side that their music becomes much stronger, poignant and takes a genuine step toward a more realised sound. “Last Night on Earth” bristles with a sound not unlike Lennon’s solo work, incorporating a slide guitar alongside their best melodies on the album. The intro to “?Viva La Gloria?” combining a ragtime beat with some excellent vocal work. However, it’s on the album’s strongest track “Restless Heart Syndrome” where Billie Joe’s voice excels his punk yelp; trading it in for an 80s croon, he laments through a wonderful rock song. Beginning with perfectly used, swelling horns and a delicate piano line, it builds, slowly and slowly, eventually hitting its crescendo of a loud guitar explosion, like they’ve been asked to soundtrack the end of the world.

But, for all the good when Green Day stop to explore new sounds, the formulaic approach to the rest of the album lets them down. Aside from the titles, there’s nothing to tell apart “Horseshoes and Handgrenades” from “Before the Lobotomy” and it all blends into one, boring blur of identikit chord rock. Not all of the rock songs are bad though; “Peacemaker” grooves along with a latin-tinged, speed metal vibe and “21 Guns” bounces along at an annoyingly infectious rhythm with a chorus so catchy that I find myself singing it without realising. Yet, the highlights aren’t often enough to save the album from its inherent flaws; boring songwriting leading to samey songs.

Having said all the above, this might seem like a unexpected u-turn but I can’t bring myself to truly hate 21st Century Breakdown despite it offering nothing new or truly interesting as its been crafted with such purpose and passion in mind that it’s hard not to admire that. Green Day are a band, who, for all their flaws, have always seen their music as a means to actually say something and make something a bit more meaningful than their contemporaries. They’re more likely to care about changing their fan’s lives than picking which tabloid they want to cover their marriage, divorce and eventual Big Brother comeback and I admire that, I do. As a result, the album sounds like something from the early 70s when rock musicians actually crafted their music with a goal to challenge their fans, show their passion through their art and actually create something that enriches your mind. Green Day might not have the songwriting chops to do that but the passion is there and if it enriches those prepubescent minds then who am I to call it rubbish?