This is the 7th studio album by legendary American pop punk band from Oakland, Green Day. As legendary as they are now, it wasn’t always this way. They were one of the most popular rock bands of the 1990s with albums like Dookie, Insomniac and Nimrod, gaining staggering traction right when grunge’s popularity was starting to slow down. However, this momentum would not carry into the new millennium with Warning…it would actually be a disaster! Green Day tried to go softer on that album and while it garnered mostly positive reviews from critics and is now regarded as one of Green Day’s better records, people weren’t biting at the time. Warning was a commercial failure, the lowest slump of sales in Green Day’s career. Green Day were seen as old men in the pop punk genre and the youthful Dookie days were gone. They released a greatest hits album in 2001, which really didn’t help matters, in fact, rumours started swirling around about a breakup as the band was reportedly argumentative and miserable together. Green Day was officially on the brink. But they did work out their differences in 2003 and started to mesh back together as a band. With this newfound harmony, they broke ground on an album called “Cigarettes and Valentines”, but just their luck, those demo tapes were stolen, and not found until 2016. So Green Day started from scratch, turning little 30-second riffs into a sprawling punk rock opera, and in 2004, American Idiot was released. It was released to roaring applause, with astounding worldwide critical and commercial success. An underdog story for the ages, if I ever heard one. Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and Wake Me Up When September Ends were EVERYWHERE in the 2000s, and of course, at the time, my uncle would always play me these songs when I was little. I would never let him stop playing Boulevard of Broken Dreams (guitar go e-uh-uh-uh). Fast forward to when I became a teenager, this album basically kickstarted my love for a good concept album when I listened to it the whole way through for the first time. As for how I feel about it now, nothing’s really changed. It’s not even a matter of rose-tinted glasses, I just love this album! While production may not be this album’s strong suit in a few key areas, it’s still an amazing record. Compositionally, it balances heaviness with lightness effectively and it makes for this epic yet super fun sound. Then we get to the lyrics, with a dynamic Billie Joe Armstrong guiding us through one of the best narratives I’ve ever heard in music. Green Day made a political album timeless by applying it to someone’s life. It’s just beautiful and I’ve been crazy about this album for a LONG TIME! Let’s dive in!
PRODUCTION
Yeah, production on this album gets all the nitpicks from me. From a mixing standpoint, this album’s fine, but there are a couple key problems. Let’s start with positives. I love how the drums sound. They’re bright and potent, especially with the room the production gives them, especially on Are We The Waiting and Letterbomb. The gunshot snares on Wake Me Up When September Ends are fantastic as well, which remind me of both the video for that song and the song Epitaph by King Crimson. The bass is present, which is shocking for a rock album, but it makes it known that Green Day is a cohesive unit again. Vocals sound nice and urgent, which is exactly what you want from a punk album. But, electric guitars are possibly the worst offender here. Acoustic guitars sound fine and full of body and electric guitars are alright when they do lead lines, but rhythm chugging guitars feel mechanical. Yes, they’re heavy, but they just seem a little lifeless to me, like a stone wall of sound that could really use some breathing room. And those guitars are so SO loud, but they sound blocky and unnatural, which is sometimes really effective, when you really need that slap in the face like in Letterbomb, but it doesn’t quite fit with the more introspective songs on the album.
This brings me to mastering. Mastering can get atrociously bad on this album. The rock stereotype of guitars overpowering everything is definitely here and while it’s not everywhere, it gets quite noticeable in spots, and it’s not just the vocalist that falls into this fog, but everyone else too. So, the guitar solo on Give Me Novacaine is desperately trying to fight its way through a thick fog of chugging guitars and so do Billie Joe’s vocals on a few occasions across the album, the worst probably being the closer, Whatsername. Billie gains ground only to lose it again in that damn fog. Now, I’m not expecting a very flashy album when it comes to effects or panning and I don’t get one here, but Green Day has never been a flashy band when it comes to effects. The notable exception is of course, Boulevard of Broken Dreams with the iconic opening filtered guitar chords. They play with stereo a bit on Jesus of Suburbia for example, but it is definitely not used as another element to service the narrative. With all these complaints I’ve leveled against American Idiot’s production, it’s made me think, “Why do I love this album so much again?”, but then I realize, oh yeah, it’s American Idiot. I love everything else.
COMPOSITION
Composition on this album is quintessential Green Day in all its glory. Guitars are super fun and heavy. The rhythm guitars, while I feel they could be mixed better, are fantastic for that heavy punk sound, especially when trying to make musical statements all on their own like Jesus of Suburbia’s opening line. Most of this album’s guitars are chugging and heavy, but they’re simple and they works. The trebly melody guitar lines on Holiday are nice too, so it’s not just chugging guitars, and it adds a much-needed touch of diversity with these guitars. Speaking of diversity, acoustic guitars are an underrated element on this album that makes up a softer side. Give Me Novacaine, Homecoming and of course, Wake Me Up When September Ends are notable examples and I love it whenever they use acoustic guitars. The bass is definitely simple, but don’t count it out just yet. It helps as an auxiliary instrument. Yes, guitars overpower everything, but Jesus of Suburbia briefly exposes Dirnt’s simple, yet effective lines. Holiday’s bass lick in the bridge is great as well and it is perfect for cooling down the listener after the guitar solo, similar to Welcome To Paradise. Drums are definitely no slouch either, Tré Cool plays the shit out of them, especially to start off songs. Sure, it’s not hard to play “doom-doom-ka” for 10 tracks, but it is considerably harder to be the first thing someone hears from a song. Luckily, Tré Cool swoops in to bring an epic sound to these tracks he opens up for, giving punch to the fun songs, giving a more poignant punch to the sadder songs, and giving tabla to Extraordinary Girl which unlike the former two points, American Idiot didn’t really need. Despite that little hiccup, this is still super solid instrumentation from Green Day.
Extraordinary Girl brings me to structure. Sure, the beginning tabla on Extraordinary Girl comes out of nowhere for basically no reason, but that’s where the structure problems end: an innocuous detail. Oh, Green Day, you know how to treat me right! The streaming version of American Idiot has some of the best transitions I’ve heard from a concept album. They knew that a few of these songs were connected and essentially inseparable from each other such as Holiday and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, so they just put them together for streaming services. This makes all musical ideas on the album complete and in a nice package, which is perfect for playlists, unlike a certain Pink Floyd with a tightly knit concept (*cough* The Wall *cough cough*). And speaking of those songs, their moods are placed ever so delicately to balance each other out. Holiday is a fun rager, Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a sad song. Alternatively, Are We The Waiting is the sad song then St. Jimmy comes along with a fun rager. Give Me Novocaine and She’s A Rebel fit this style as well. Green Day’s use of contrast on American Idiot is possibly the best I’ve heard ever! Hell, the opener and closer are even contrasting like this. The title track is a hard punk song and Whatsername is more laid back and introspective punk song. Did anyone expect this level of cohesion from Green Day?! Oh, and that’s not even getting into the big multi movement songs! Jesus of Suburbia is one of my Bohemian Rhapsody picks for best song of the decade with multiple parts for a reason. Each movement complements each other perfectly, with rises and falls in mood from heavy to light. Homecoming does this as well with its movements, but it rises and falls between epic and mundane, coming in at the end with a massive finish. But to get further into that, we need to mention themes and lyrics.
LYRICS
Like I said, this album is part of why I love concept albums so much. American Idiot could not be American Idiot without, of course, the one and only, Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie is in his prime form with a confident singing voice to match the boisterous instruments. When this album gets quiet, Billie Joe Armstrong’s vocals work as well, with a lot of that quiet sadness coming from Wake Me Up When September Ends, which is palpable, especially considering the subject matter of that song. He’s as expressive as he was in Dookie and then some. But there’s a mature stoicism in his voice that wasn’t there in Dookie and there’s a lot more power that comes from that. That expressiveness bleeds into Dirnt and Tré Cool’s performances on Homecoming as well. I quite enjoyed that! My problem with Billie Joe Armstrong’s vocals on this album is that he tends to bunch lines and syllables together to make these wordy, unnatural melodies every once in a while. There’s even some awkward phrasing and pronunciation, for example on Jesus of Suburbia, he says “TO-day” instead of how the word is normally pronounced “to-DAY” which sounds unnatural. I got flashbacks from when he’d do this on 39/Smooth and other albums around that era when they were first starting out and I don’t like it! But the hooks are still there and they are extremely catchy and poignant.
And now we get to dissecting the story of American Idiot. What’s there to say that hasn’t been said by people who love this album? Some say that this is Green Day’s big “political album” and stand against the Bush administration, and while that is a part of this album, American Idiot is far from just a political album. The album kicks off with the title track, which is a scathing critique of the Bush administration as well as a diagnosis for Bush-era America with the media poisoning the well, spearheading irreparable damage to American society in the years following 9/11. But if you just listened to the song, American Idiot, you would never expect the rest of the album, American Idiot. American Idiot is a wide, setting-establishing song which sets the stage for Jesus of Suburbia, a song that establishes our main character, his desires and why he has them. It tells an incredible story of a young person who leaves home to forge his own path, disillusioned with the sanitized American suburban life and his family. He is initially happy with leaving until realizing the gravity of his situation as he grapples with poverty and loneliness. Then in comes his rage with St. Jimmy, which manifests in Jesus acting out even more and blaming everyone else for his problems. Then love comes in a girl named…well…Whatsername…with She’s A Rebel (complete with a Toronto name drop). Being in a relationship with the Jesus of Suburbia turns out to not be fun for Whatsername on Extraordinary Girl, so she dumps Jesus on Letterbomb and gives him the slap in the face he needs to come to his senses and start to mature. Homecoming is the process of going from punk delinquent to cog in the American corporate machine, which Jesus definitely does not enjoy, but knows is necessary for his survival. Which leaves the song, Whatsername, a retrospective on the Jesus of Suburbia’s love from long ago. Need I remind you; the music rises and falls with Jesus’ mood here and it really makes for an expressive album. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, American Idiot is a good-old fashioned coming-of-age story with a vague ending for the listener to interpret. What I love about this story is how personal it is. It is very much inspired by Billie Joe Armstrong’s life as well as Green Day’s evolution, summarizing both of their raisons de vivre. If you listened to Dookie, you’d hear a similar resentment of Billie Joe’s parents as well as a desire to forge one’s own path. But this is summarized best in the song, Wake Me Up When September Ends. It’s about Billie Joe’s grieving process for his father who passed away with cancer when he was a child. This is Billie Joe being as human as he’s ever been and without Wake Me Up When September Ends, we wouldn’t have American Idiot or Green Day. This is by far, the most human and therefore, impactful album that Green Day has made and possibly will ever make. The world may have changed a lot since 2004, but American Idiot is still a timeless classic and is understandably the album that catapulted Green Day into immortality.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I love this album and I’ve loved it for a long time. This album is to Green Day what The Little Mermaid is to Disney; a renaissance that not only brought them back from the dead but skyrocketed them into unfathomable success they had never seen before and for good reason! When I look deeper into the production aspect however, I realize this album does some things I don’t care for. They really wanted to gun it on guitars, but it was at the cost of everyone else in the band. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but at least everyone else sounds good. I asked myself “Why do I like this album?” and then I looked at composition and lyrics. Composition is super fun and heavy. It’s obviously a heavy guitar-driven record, but all the other instruments are great as well and it really shows that this band is a solid unit together, working as a team to make this behemoth. Structure shows a cohesion never-before-heard by Green Day and few artists have been able to even pull such cohesion off. The use of contrast is incredible this record from track to track. The multi-movement songs flow effortlessly between movements, and it shows an insane amount of detail that went into American Idiot. Then come lyrics with a confident, expressive Billie Joe Armstrong taking centre stage to guide us along a coming-of-age story inspired by his own life, the state of Green Day and the state of the world. Dookie may have been what put Green Day on the map, but American Idiot put them back on the map and stronger than ever before. This may be the crown jewel of 2000s alternative and emo rock, and not only is it a poignant protest of the Bush administration and post-9/11 America, but it is a story that comes right from the heart which has shaped me and a generation of music fans from Chicago to Toronto, from Anaheim to The Middle East. American Idiot is a record that is insanely enjoyable and powerful. Albums like these are the key to immortality for one’s music career and Green Day has done just that.
I’m giving this one a Strong 9/10.
FAVOURITE TRACKS: American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Are We The Waiting, St. Jimmy, Give Me Novacaine, She’s a Rebel, Letterbomb, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Homecoming, Whatsername
LEAST FAVOURITE TRACK: Extraordinary Girl
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