Green Day’s music staggers back

By Nathan Norton
Western Herald

(Reprise Records) Green Day’s vision of a post-Bush world, ‘21st Century Breakdown.’

Billie Joe, Mike and Tre are back at last with “21st Century Breakdown,” the long awaited follow-up to 2004’s smash hit “American Idiot.” With a span of nearly five years stretching between the two albums, Green Day fans have been itching at their anarchy tattoos for a fix of their favorite political punk trio.

The Good— First thing’s first. The production value on “21st Century Breakdown” is, in a word, superb. The vocals are clean and clear, the guitars crunchy and aggressive, the drums tight and punchy, the bass booming and toneful. But did we really expect anything less from Butch Vig, the record’s producer?

Vig’s credentials include bands like Garbage (for whom he thumps the skins), Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, AFI, Against Me and others. He’s a pro at what he does and this album proves it. The record sounds great.

The Bad— Just because the record sounds great doesn’t mean the record’s sounds are any good. “21st Century” is what “American Idiot” would have sounded like had it been musically uninspired and generally uninteresting.

Don’t get me wrong, the album has three or four tracks that don’t completely suck the life out of the listener with their cornbread-like texture, but four out of 19 is just a bad batting average.

Green Day hasn’t given up on the punk rock opera. With this effort, the band sticks with American Idiot’s loose narrative, spending the album’s length spouting social and political commentary and kinda sorta (but not really) following Christian and Gloria, the star characters as they live life in a Bush-led United States.

Hey, it worked with the last disc, why not this one? Apparently because on a second go, the whole punk rock concept album thing falls shorter than Michael J. Fox trying to reach the bulk toilet paper.

I’ve always been impressed with Billie Joe Armstrong’s ability to defy his genre and create ear tickling vocal melodies over jackhammer rhythms and simplistic chord progressions. So I was pretty peeved when Armstrong decided to go ahead and write up a host of humdrum vox on this release.

As mentioned, the vocals sound great. But no amount of production can fix subpar melody composition. They just aren’t up to snuff when pit against Green Day’s past efforts. I’ll be honest with you; I was looking forward to finding a track on this disc that I would have a hard time not humming while doing mind-numbing activities.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that.

I got a battalion of wholly forgettable songs with a light sprinkling of mediocrity. There is no “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” here. There is no “Holiday.” No “Jesus of Suburbia.”
Let’s face it. There’s not much else good here. There are some tolerable things. Even some alright things.

I might even go as far to say that I like the Conquistador flavored sounds of “Peacemaker,” the old school frenetic energy of “Murder City,” or the seesaw rhythms of “Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl).”

If you’re an avid Green Day disciple with your heart shaped hand grenade tattooed on your inner thigh and your eyeliner thick and crusty and your red necktie tied about your short sleeve black dress shirt, then you’ll love this album and likely hate me.

“21st Century Breakdown” tries to ride the long-departed coattails of its forerunner and falls by the wayside, coughing up a few bits of pleasing punk rock as it rolls into the gutter where it will rest placidly for the next half a decade until Billie Joe gets infuriated enough with American politics and finds fuel to create one more bitter record.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on May 31 2009. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com