225 - Green Day - American Idiot

I really enjoyed Dookie when it came out in the early 90's. After that, I lost interest in the band as a whole wave of neo-punk bands slid in after grunge. When American Idiot came out, I wasn't enticed to give Green Day another chance. I laughed at their growing use of make-up and appearance of some sort of goth punk pop band. I had also reached my threshold of Bush-bashing by that point and was just kinda sick with its ubiquity.

So, when it came time to listen to the album, I welcomed it as a change of pace from the quiet and stark Nebraska and tried to listen with fresh ears. I found myself to be more than pleasantly surprised by what I heard. The band rocks, it dabbles in ballads, and gets quirky with a Meatloaf-esque spin during one of the suites on the album. I don't think the band's sound changed in the making of this album as much as the concept of the unified story and willingness to blend songs together lended Green Day a new burst of creative respect. It's not that this album is groundbreaking as much as it is a quality album that highlights the musical capabilities of a band that could have been forever pigeon-holed into post-punk revivalists riding out the fame from Dookie.

Admittedly, what I'm about to say is very nit-picky, but it was a recurring thought during my listens, so I feel a need to include these thoughts in my review. American Idiot is proclaimed as a rock opera and many reviews compare it to The Who's efforts with Tommy and Quadrophenia. While I don't doubt that the lyrics of the songs create a narrative to a unified story that runs through the album, it is the "opera" part that I'm not completely sold on. There are always (in my experience, at least) moments during pop music operas that lyrics are somewhat separate from structured songs. Usually there is a point where the character delivers a soliloquy of sung vocals over sparse instrumentation. These moments highlight the theatricality of the work to me. Other than a few moments in "Holiday" where the character delivers a short shouted monologue, I missed this aspect of opera. I know it is a little thing, but it is a trait that separates "opera" from "concept album" to me.


Songs I Knew I Liked: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

Songs I Now Like: "Holiday," "Extraordinary Girl," and "Homecoming"

Songs I Can Go the Rest of My Life Never Hearing Again: None, although "American Idiot" started to get on my nerves over time.