For the acoustic cover music video of “Peacemaker,” CLICK HERE!
RATING: 4 / 5 stars
By Chris Moore:
Try as I might, I just couldn’t get into American Idiot. (I know, I know… send your complaints care of Chris at the Laptop Sessions.) What possessed me to buy 21st Century Breakdown? I’m not entirely sure.
But, I’m glad I did.
Green Day has followed up their 2004 rock epic/concept album American Idiot with an even more ambitious concept album, aiming this time at the realities and challenges presented to the next generation at the turn of the century. If I read the lyrics of the title track properly (“We are, we are the class of ’13), Billie Joe Armstrong refers to the first decade of the 20th century as an incubation period and 2013 as a graduation year of sorts. Interestingly this is the year that we will inaugurate our next president. Considering the subject matter of their previous album, Armstrong seems to be holding 2013 up as a test of what we as a nation and a society have learned over the past couple decades.
Will we — as “graduates” — demonstrate tangible, calculable progress, or will we recede back into the mentalities and mistakes of our forefathers?
As Armstrong sings, “I was made of poison and blood; condemnation is what I understood.” And, of course, he doesn’t forget the government on this most recent release, noting that “Homeland Security could kill us all.” Indeed, he traces the “class of ’13” back to — and suggests that we have been raised by — “the bastards of 1969.”
In this sense, 21st Century Breakdown is connected at its heart to the era and perhaps the first year that Americans lost an innocence and faith in their government that at least appeared to exist previously. Consider the difference between the lighter, folk-inspired protest music of the civil rights movement and the heavier protest material of the late sixties and early seventies. Indeed, 1969 began in January with the inauguration of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States who was most infamous for the Watergate scandal. In March, Assistant Attorney General Richard Kleindienst spoke out against what he called “ideological criminals,” referring perhaps to the the alternative opinions being expressed by college students among others. In May, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigned following a financial controversy. In the final months of the year, mass protests were staged against the war, including what came to be known as “Vietnam Moratorium Day” and a march on Washington, DC.
Throughout 21st Century Breakdown, there are repeated references to an entire generation of people whose confusion and “anguish” has been spawned from having inherited this legacy. Certainly, there is a positive underlying message somewhere on this album, a suggestion that 2013 could indeed be a graduation year of sorts and a chance to move on to a new and different generational mindset than the one that has preoccupied us particularly over the past eight years.
Of course, we must remember that 1969 also saw Neil Armstrong’s moon walk and the Woodstock music festival. Although the album is angsty and even angry throughout — and ends with tracks like “21 Guns” and “American Eulogy” — Armstrong and company depart with a message of hope in the final track, “See the Light” — he sings, “I want to see the light… I want to learn what’s worth the fight.” To be certain, there is a positive energy and hesitant hopefulness that simply did not come through on American Idiot.
Under normal circumstances, it is probably not advisable to apply all that much scrutiny to Armstrong’s lyrics. “It’s punk,” I have been told. And that is true. Indeed, this is perhaps why I have had a mental block of sorts that has prevented me from getting into, appreciating, and enjoying their previous work. But anyone, myself included, who has so much as thumbed through the lyric booklet for American Idiot knows the effort and forethought that went into that album.
On 21st Century Breakdown, it all seems to come together.
As with Bruce Springsteen’s Working On A Dream (released earlier this year — CLICK HERE for a full review), this is an album written and recorded by a group that has worked hard over a lengthy career and is now able to put together the pieces — in Green Day’s case, there is straightforward, all-out punk rock but there are also more subtle acoustic guitar and piano-driven tracks. There is screaming and there is crooning. There are power chords pounded out on electric guitar, but there are also carefully constructed (if fairly simple) harmonies.
For my money, this is Green Day’s most ambitious — and perhaps most fully realized — album yet.
Breakdown opens with “Song of the Century,” emerging from the hiss of radio static as a simple, a cappella introduction to the concept of this album.
The title track follows immediately with several stabs at the piano before a heavy drum beat picks up and kicks in. This song lays out the premise of the album to come, referencing the aforementioned “class of ’13” and the “bastards of 1969.” This is a song presented in movements, reminiscent of a more mainstream take on the progressive format embraced by Weezer’s “I Am the Greatest Man (That Ever Lived)” from last year’s Red Album. The closing line — “Scream, America, scream. Believe what you see from heroes and cons” — is not only a call to the people of this society, but also evokes Brian Wilson with the reference to “heroes and cons” (think: “Heroes and Villains”, the multi-movement second track of Brian Wilson’s legendary SMiLE).
Next comes “Know Your Enemy,” a punk tour-de-force. As many have noted, its roots are planted firmly in the Clash. Boneheaded? Yup. Bound to get stuck in your head? Yup.
Part one continues in a roller coaster ride: starting deceptively slow with “Viva La Gloria!” and “Before the Labotomy” (which introduce the recurring characters of young Gloria and Christian) and throttling back with “Christian’s Inferno” before coming to a melancholy conclusion with “Last Night On Earth.”
Part two, titled “Charlatans and Saints,” delivers more of the same. The standout tracks are the electric rocker “East Jesus Nowhere” — a scathing commentary — and the acoustic rocker “Peacemaker” — another scathing, sarcastic commentary on its oxymoronic title.
This section ends with “Restless Heart Syndrome,” a song boasting perhaps the worst lyrical pun of the year, but a strong track nonetheless.
The third, final, and perhaps strongest section is “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” the title track employing these handheld items — one thrown by the well to do and the relaxed, the other thrown by soldiers engaged in mortal combat — as part of a rhetorical device. As Armstrong sings, ” ‘Almost’ only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades.” A unique way to put it, but I suppose that’s true…
The final four tracks are at the thematic heart of the album: “The Static Age” rails against the confusion of the modern age, “21 Guns” asks the important and sadly relevant question “Do you know what’s worth fighting for?”, “American Eulogy” begins with a reprise/continuation of “Song of the Century” and unrolls a two-part attack (“Mass Hysteria” / “Modern Age”), and “See the Light” eases the album into its final phase, reinforcing the desire to “know what’s worth the fight” and, of course, to “see the light.”
** ** **
Two years after the American Idiot tour ended, it was reported that Armstrong had finished writing 45 new songs. Oddly enough, though, this album was released after the longest gap between releases in the band’s history.
Or, perhaps not so odd. The album is proof positive that Green Day took their time not only with the writing, but also the recording and sequencing of the tracks for 21st Century Breakdown.
The result?
An entertaining but thoughtful album that is more than worth your time.
