Posted on 06/23/2009
Just as people are questioning whether or not the Black Eyed Peas are just a group with light hip-hop influences, people have wondered if Green Day's punk rock rage has been nothing more than a piece of clothing for them. In other words, are they just a pop band with slight punk leanings? The same can be said for Nirvana, but Nirvana did not influence the creation of the Jonas Brothers... who are Green Day lite. If you've asked this, perhaps you were a fan of Green Day since Dookie or 39/Smooth, but keep in mind that this is a band that has been around for 22 years who is bound to change and expand their horizons. This is a band that has done just that, and sometimes for the better.

Personally, I love aggressive punk and I am a sucker for a good pop song. I love some of the more celebrated punk bands of the last 30 years, including The Clash, The Buzzcocks, and of course The Sex Pistols. These bands went back to the origins, the rebelliousness of what rock'n'roll stood for, and yet they also played around with the notion of what represents pop. In other words, if Frank Sinatra's off-stage attitude entered his music, he would be punk rock. Perhaps it's even more appropriate that Green Day is on the label that Sinatra started, Reprise. So what does this have to do with the music? A lot, because Green Day have moved forward into creating some great music that still pushes the limits of what pop is supposed to be, making their brand of anger and self-reflection popular. On 21st Century Breakdown, their follow up to American Idiot, it seems the world they were against on American Idiot has grown to a nice red welt, where reality shows and plays are the only way people can communicate and comprehend. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dernt, and Tre Cool's music is to deliver their message as a three-part suite.

The first part consists of six songs and these songs, as well written as they are, could easily be performed by Jonas Brothers, John Legend, or Memphis May Fire. "Before The Lobotomy," "Last Night On Earth," and "Know Your Enemy" almost paint sarcastic pictures of the world we live in today, the post-Orwellian vision in the point of no return. The sarcasm comes from hearing these songs in pop form, each still with the trademark riffs that Armstrong and Dirnt are known for but doing it without the volume. That happens in the second part of the suite, where a song like "Last Of The American Girls" salutes the ladies of the future who have to survive in a world heading in a downward spiral as shown by these lyrics: "she wears her overcoat/for the coming of the nuclear winter/she is riding her bike/like a fugitive of critical mass/she's on a hunger strike/for the ones who won't make it to dinner." In other words, the image of the typical American girl is now morphing into women of the coming new world order, where all will be one and the elite will be fighting for their survival too. By the time the album reaches the third and final suite, the mood gets angrier with such titles such as "Horseshoes And Handgrenades," "See The Light," and "American Eulogy," it's the musical equivalent of Dr. Strangelove, and we're all going to be on the bomb like Texas rangers yelling "yee-haw!"

As always, Green Day are capable of making songs that are perfect for the radio, tunes that will have some level of classic rock status in five to ten years. But as an album, 21st Century Breakdown works close to perfectly as it has a beginning and an end, with a lot of solid action in the middle that may become anthems and statements for anyone who calls themselves fans. It's very much an album of the early 21st century, and while the optimism throughout is at an all time low, Armstrong says in the last song that "it's gone forever/but never too late/where the ever after/is in the hands of fate." Green Day are very much the Berkeley punks they started out as, but are now fathers who are hoping their children will be able to see through the bitterness of the world, as Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire once talked about in "That's The Way Of The World." Green Day are hoping that perhaps it doesn't have to be that way, if you choose to make positive change in the land of negativity.

- John Book