Reflecting Pool: Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown

Green Day gives us another Rock Opera. But is it any good?

Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown – 2009 (iTunes – Amazon)

“My generation is zero. I never made it as a working class hero.”

It’s a great line. It follows a bit about being born into Nixon and is followed a little later with the spittle of being “raised by the bastards of 1969”.

There’s a bit of chatter about the new Green Day album. Some hate it, like Jim DeRogatis of Sound Opinions who thought it has too much bombast, that it owes more to Queen than to Punk.
Some love it, labeling it the sequel to American Idiot.
It is and it isn’t.
It’s definitely got a gigantic sound. Trading in Rob Cavallo’s thick production for an even more wide sonic palette of Butch Vig, I found that the album only really works when it’s cranked really loud. Only then does the anthemic nature pour out. This is not a soft record. It’s in our faces. Armstrong’s got a lot to say, the band has a lot to do, and dammit, you need to hear it in full.
The record is divided into 3 Acts. The first, after the radio tinny sounding a cappella overture “Song of the Century”, is called

“Heroes & Cons”
In this song cycle we are introduced to the young lovers who will take us on our journey of life in the 21st century. Christian and Gloria are their names and the song dedicated to her “Viva La Gloria!” is a classic wall of sound Green Day power track with a one minute piano/violin intro. Its a top down fly down the highway piece of gloss and it works on every level. That it has to follow the radio ready power pop/punk of “Know Your Enemy” is a task that the song is up to. But, it’s really the album’s introduction number, the eponymous track that sets the tone.
Smaller than “Jesus of Suburbia” but with the same multi-style motif, the title track is an explosion and culmination of everything Green Day has been working toward, making good on the promise of American Idiot to be the flagbearers of Stadium Rawk ala The Who or Queen.
Next up is “Before the Lobotomy”. This is where I began to notice that these are not just songs, this is not just a pastiche of tracks, there is an order to this. With another one minute long intro, Green Day is not interested in being radio ready as much as they are about telling a story.
I, personally, think there is no coincidence that the male hero’s name is what it is. This is an album not about living through the worst and most callous administration in history, its about living in the aftermath. Christians and Glory seekers have to deal with the repercussions of their actions. (btw, 3:30 of this song and 4:25 of 21st Century Breakdown are pure Brian May guitar God-hooding.)
“Christian’s Inferno” could have fallen off The Network’s Money Money 2020. Trading New Wave verses with panic-punk choruses, this is the song where life begins to fall apart for our heroes. From what I gather, Christian can’t get a job and is really pissed about it. In fact, looking around him he’s none too pleased with the state of the world that he’s been handed and he really wants to lash out.
“Last Night on Earth” is the love song. The music is either an outgrowth of Wake me Before September Ends or a complete Rip off of Lennon. Doesn’t matter. Could just be a big ballad, and that’s fine, it’s the hallucinogenic backing music, almost dischordant effects, with an occasional seagull tossed in for good measure, that makes the song really sing for me. As the ending of a cycle, it’s divine.

“Charlatans and Saints”
“East Jesus Nowhere” is a religious army’s call to arms. As I see it, this is Billie Joe’s warning that the religious right have been mobilized and are preparing for war. “I want to know who’s allowed to breed/All the dogs who never learned to read/Missionary politicians/And the cops of the new religion”
Yeah. He’s got a bone to pick with the Religious Right alright.
“Peacemaker” follows amidst the static of what sounds like Arab radio, the song itself is obviously middle eastern flavored rock. Or “Misery” on steroids. But, it would follow suit that, after a song calling Christians to the fight of their lives, we would get to see a response from the Muslim side. The song is excellent, by the way.
“Last of the American Girls” shows us a bit of Gloria. She ain’t just a girl next door. She’s pissed and paranoid. She’s mad at corporate America. She’s an idealist that might be the template for Patty Hearst if she weren’t a descendant. I wouldn’t doubt her to be a vegetarian and a member of PeTA.
And if you were feeling like the album didn’t have a lot teeth, “Murder City” is every bit as Dookie era GD that you would be likely to hear, except that the boys are 37 not 22. They have more to say. Gloria isn’t all that thrilled with the way things are turning out. She feels desperate, useless, her boyfriend is crying in the bathroom and all she wants is a cigarette. I don’t have a lot of hope for these two, truth be told.
Much like the Weil-esque Misery is “Viva la Gloria?” I liked the style before. I like it now. I’m not sure what has happened to Gloria, though….Then we get to the first clunker; “Restless Heart Syndrome”. If you’re gonna redux “Novacaine”, make it better, guys. But, then that song’s descent to guitar inferno actually helps the song and ends the second act on the right note: Chaos.

Act III
Horseshoes & Handgrenades
After the sound of jackboots marching, Billie Joe screams, “I’m not fucking around!” on “Horseshoes & Handgrenades” and he sounds like he means it. I guess Christian’s fed up with being lied to and forced to drink the swill of propaganda. His screams of G-L-O-R-I-A! folds right into the epic pop rock sound of “Static Age”, a song I am taking as an indictment of the noise of pop culture. When all is done and the cult of celebrity has clouded the horrors of the world, all that’s left is the reality of the battlefield. “21 Guns” is the second single from the record and it’s a bold one. (It kind of sounds like All the Young Dudes in the chorus. Just mentioning) We’re still at war, but we seem to have forgotten all that. Through all the clutter of 24 hour news and OMG! magazine and MTV’s The Hills, we’ve forgotten that men and women are dying for a cause that has turned out to be a boondoggle.
From there it’s a reprise of the opening track, although with more static than before. As that fades into the background, the siren blare of “Mass Hysteria” (with a verse rewrite of Deadbeat Holiday) could be taken for the exact reaction of the world to the economic meltdown. It WAS Mass Hysteria. Blending into the track “Modern World”, one gets the sense that there really might be no hope for Christian and Gloria. It’s too much, this hysteria, this meltdown, this world of early adopters and technology. Our heroes might not fit in. Nor might any of us. And when it’s over, what are we left with? A world at crossroads. There is no happy ending, after all, we are in the middle of this crisis, aren’t we? And I’ve never turned to Green Day for hope. Billie Joe’s worldview, with transgendering, absentee fathers, submissive boyfriends, malevolent girlfriends, has never been all that hopeful, has it? Why would we expect it now?

Of course, I might be wrong about all this.

This is an amazing record. Not dull by any means. Maybe it’ll fade away from memory, it most certainly won’t have the effect of American Idiot, having to live up to that album’s legacy and, somehow, outdo it without aping it, it just can’t win. And, knowing that, Green Day has decided to make what THEY want to make and leave it to us whether we embrace it or not. I’ve heard somewhere that these songs were the ones they decided to put on the record of the 40 they recorded.
40. I imagine that another Green Day album might be in the offing not too long from now.

After 20 years of never making one truly bad album, their streak continues.

Grade A
A-Side: 21st Century Breakdown. Know Your Enemy, Before the Lobotomy, Viva La Gloria!,
BlindSide: Peacemaker, Murder City, Viva Le Gloria?, Static Age
DownSide: Christian’s Inferno, See the Light