Afterthoughts: Green Day - "21st Century Breakdown"

Now that the pre-release hype has died away, I've decided to take another look at Green Day's latest, 21st Century Breakdown.

Something about this album's sheer existence made it seem set up to fail. Billie Joe and crew had struck gold with American Idiot, somehow marrying multi-track thematics and ten-minute epics with their classic sound, making it one of the most successful albums of the 2000s. Beating that with their next album just seemed like a short-term form of Axl Rose syndrome - pre-release, review and post-release hype, the possibility of a stage production, movie, and more buzz surrounding American Idiot -- it all kept promo machine going through the massive gap of time between releases (nearly five years). Yet, fans and industry people still were left going "when is that next album ever going to come? And is it going to be remotely as good as Idiot?"

The release finally came about a month ago, and reviews have been mixed-to-positive. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I want to focus on what the album is, and what it isn't.

First, what it is not:

A cement-strong concept album -- While their marketing message for the album plugged it as a three-act concept album, the threads of narrative and sound that stretch through this album are not very strong. Two main characters are spoken of (Gloria, Christian) but where they go and what they go through is vague. It's mostly presented as vignettes. No matter... it's enough to unify it, but it's not story heavy, like The Decemberists' recent The Hazards of Love

Classic Green Day - Strong affinity Dookie is nowhere to be found on this album. But on that note, affinity to Warning isn't here either. Of course, they haven't abandoned their core sound, but their song structures, production, epic key changes (see: chorus on "After the Lobotomy") seem to have sprung out of something new in the past five years. People looking for Green Day circa 1994 may be disappointed, but those who have decided that 15 years' worth of music and life experiences should yield some sonic change will notice a departure from the past. It's not like every song on this album is "Last Night on Earth" (whose closest similarity in the GD catalog is "Wake Me Up When September Ends"), but for every "East Jesus Nowhere" or that feels old school, there is a "Murder City" that toes the line between classic and new-sound, as well as a "Restless Heart Syndrome" straying way away from their core sound. It pretty much falls into perfect thirds - 6 tracks classic, 6 tracks new-sound, 6 tracks somewhere in between.

Heavy, deep, overwhelming social critique - Going off the concept-album idea, Green Day has consistently portrayed this as an even heavier look at what American society is like today. I see traces of it, and none of that is very poetic ("...the bastards of 1969!" doesn't roll off the tongue very well in the title track), but it DOES exist. But maybe that just does fit Green Day. They're not the kind of guys to hole up in the branches of trees to stop loggers, and they're definitely not a trio of Dylans, but they do get across the anxieties and idiosyncrasies they set out to portray.


What it IS:

Longer than I expected - This is satisfying to sit down and listen to all the way through because it actually has some length to it. For every 3-minute track there's a 5-minute beast (those are usually where the loose story plays through the most), and at 18 tracks that adds up. There's a few throwaway tracks like "Peacemaker" and "Know Your Enemy" (I have little doubt that long-term fan hindsight will put it into the lower tier of Green Day singles because it has this incredible ability to be catchy for the first minute and a half then mind-numbing for the rest)

Chock full of singles - when I heard "concept album" I got worried that there wouldn't be much radio-ready coming from 21st Century Breakdown. Hearing the repetitive "Know Your Enemy" made me even more worried - if this is the lead single, what will follow? After hearing the full album a few times, I remembered -- often the lead single isn't the best material off the album, even if it gets the most radio play. It happened with The Killers' Sam's Town ("Read My Mind" was the third single, but is probably one of the best songs the Killers have ever produced), It happened with U2's HtDaAB (The whole rest of the album was much better than "Vertigo")... and 21CB follows suit. I'm disappointed with the selection of "21 Guns" as the second single, but it's probably because it's being tied into the new Transformers movie soundtrack and needed to hit the airwaves sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, they have plenty of options for radio play all the way into the fall and even winter: "Viva La Gloria", "Last of the American Girls" and even the title track are excellent options.

Easy on the ears - Experimentation and sonic evolution don't always produce good results. (Case in point: U2's No Line on the Horizon, Metallica's St. Anger). While a few songs feel wonky ("Peacemaker") generally the stretching Green Day does is still accessible. You'll get what I mean when you hear the very beginning of "¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl)"... Question marks filled my head until the chorus came in, then it all felt right. That's a great microcosm that portrays the album in general -- the first time you hear it you may go "huh", but deep down listeners will find Green Day is still there.

Overall, I feel Green Day's latest is a fantastic work. American Idiot was hard to follow, but I think Green Day did it right - they didn't repeat that sound. I now think of Idiot as a stepping stone, bridging the sonic gap between Green Day's 90s work and 21st Century Breakdown. The album really isn't all they sold it to be (concept album, etc.) but what it truly IS doesn't come up short -- it's just different than what they said. Deep down, I just found the album to be satisfying, even on the first listen - something I can't usually say.

Green Play Stage Day... or something like that

Well, I think the collective subconscious of rock music listeners expected this to happen sooner or later. Check this EXTREMELY LONG press release that hit today, about a certain 2004 Green Day album becoming a big musical production:

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Green Day won two Grammy Awards – Best Rock Album and Record of the Year – with its multi-platinum American Idiot, which sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Today the band announced plans to bring that explosive album to the stage by collaborating with Michael Mayer, renowned director of Spring Awakening, which grabbed eight Tony Awards including Best Director and Best Musical in 2007. The new show – also titled American Idiot – will receive its world premiere right in the guys' backyard at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Tony-winning playhouse that launched last year's provocative rock musical Passing Strange.

Mr. Mayer and Green Day, along with Olivier Award-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett, recently completed a workshop of American Idiot in New York, which was also produced by Berkeley Rep. The show includes every song from the album, as well as several new songs from Green Day's upcoming release, 21st Century Breakdown. American Idiot will run from September 4 through October 11, opening Berkeley Rep's 2009/10 season in the state-of-the-art Roda Theatre. A limited number of seats go on sale today at berkeleyrep.org starting at only $32. Lower prices and prime performance dates are available as part of a subscription to Berkeley Rep's bold season, which also features five other hot new shows.

American Idiot follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration – an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day's electrifying songs. As Time described the album, "You will hear a story about Jesus of Suburbia, his dangerous friend St. Jimmy, and a heroic girl called Whatsername, who are struggling to express their individuality in a mass-media culture." This high-octane show will blend an onstage band and an ensemble of 19 young performers with what Newsweek calls "a soundtrack for anyone disillusioned by millennial America." Yet, Time concludes, "For an album that bemoans the state of the union, it is irresistibly buoyant."

"We are really excited to be working with Michael Mayer on this project," says Green Day's frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. "We'd been thinking of bringing American Idiot to the stage, but knew we needed to find the right partners. After meeting with Michael to discuss the possibility, he invited us to see Spring Awakening. We were so impressed with that production, as well as his vision for American Idiot, that we knew we'd found the perfect collaborator. Plus, doing it in our hometown at Berkeley Rep was an obvious bonus. They're an amazing theatre group, very adventurous, and their willingness to take chances is in keeping with the spirit of the album. The end result will be terrific, and we're really proud."

"When I first heard American Idiot, I was struck by its innate theatricality," Mayer remarks. "Here was a new musical drama begging to be staged. Who would have thought that one of the most brutally honest, eloquent, passionate, funny, and poetic theatrical responses to the post 9-11 world would be a Green Day record? The connection I felt to American Idiot surprised me. I knew and liked Green Day, but had no clue that I would ever feel so inside their songs. This work of passion and vision and fierce intelligence seemed to me like the heartbeat of a generation of Americans who were fed up. I hear in these amazing songs the articulation of their frustration, anger, longing for a better world – a journey from apathy to action. Collaborating with Billie Joe and the band is a mind-blowing thrill, and I can't wait to begin production at Berkeley Rep, the perfect home for making a new kind of musical event."

"Green Day is a band that we've long admired here in Berkeley and championed as one of our own," says Tony Taccone, artistic director of Berkeley Rep. "American Idiot is an iconic album, and having the opportunity to bring it to the stage is a bit of a dream come true. To preserve the original intention of the album while creating a stage-worthy experience is a challenge that we relish, and bringing a director with the skill and experience of Michael Mayer into our theatre makes it that much sweeter."

It is apropos that the show will premiere in Berkeley, which is where the band got its start. " The transfiguration of Green Day from punk-pop jesters into outspoken political agitators was mystifying – except to those who knew anything about the band members' respective childhoods, and their early forging as a band in the cauldron of the gritty Berkeley, California, punk-rock scene, a back story that, in retrospect, makes the emergence of American Idiot, and its attendant rebel-rousing riot of a stage show, seem all but inevitable," asserts Rolling Stone. "When they were 15 years old, Armstrong and Dirnt first ventured to the punk-rock all-ages club 924 Gilman Street Project, and everything changed. Located beside a canning shop in the gritty warehouse district of Berkeley, 924 Gilman was a graffiti-etched nonprofit drop-in center for legions of tattooed and mohawked punkers who ran the place on a volunteer, co-op basis. Gilman was where Armstrong and Dirnt first fell in love with punk music, and it's where they cut their political teeth... Apart from their political awakening, something else happened at the Gilman that would have an incalculable effect on their future. They met a fellow teenager, and Gilman regular, who already bore the stage name Tre Cool... By 1990, Armstrong, Dirnt, and Tre had coalesced into Green Day."

The band's seventh CD earned effusive praise from the press upon its release. "The ambitious American Idiot joins an elite list of albums, such as The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, that successfully weave a narrative through music," asserts Amp. It is "a fearless and politically astute rock album, a richly melodic song suite that gives voice to the disenfranchised suburban underclass of Americans ," declares Rolling Stone. " What most fans – Democrats, Republicans, and anarchists alike – seem to be connecting with is the irresistible passion, intensity, and hookiness of the music," adds Entertainment Weekly. "And Idiot's brash sound has done more than just connect with the public. It's also struck a decisive blow for rock music – make that loud, butt-kickin' rock music, the kind that shakes your nerves and rattles your brain." Now this music hits the stage at a nearby theatre that also earned a national reputation following its unlikely birth in a Berkeley storefront.

Green Day – vocalist/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool – were loud, snotty, scrappy kids from working-class backgrounds who came of age in the underground punk scene in Berkeley. Even though they had released two records prior (1039 / Smooth Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk), they announced their arrival with 1994's Dookie, a dynamic blast of exuberant three-chord punk-pop that spoke to bored teenagers everywhere. The album eventually sold 15 million copies, earned the band their first Grammy Award, and inspired a raft of imitators. Over the years, Green Day continued to top the charts with their subsequent studio albums Insomniac, Nimrod, and Warning while entertaining millions of fans with their frenetic live shows. But it was their landmark 2004 album American Idiot that launched Green Day into the stratosphere. "Jesus of Suburbia" set the tone by telling a tale of the choice between self-destruction and redemption that resonated with listeners of all ages, nationalities, and political persuasions. American Idiot debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. It spawned five hit singles, earned seven Grammy nominations (winning two, including Rock Album of the Year), and raised the bar for modern rock and roll. This year, in addition to the premiere of this show, Green Day will release its new album, 21st Century Breakdown, on Friday, May 15, and then launch a world tour.

For more information on Green Day, visit greenday.com.