Green Day — 21st Century Breakdown
CD | MP3
Producer: Butch Vig
Reprise Records
Released May 15, 2009

Five years after the release of American Idiot, Green Day returns with its latest studio album, 21st Century Breakdown.

2004 marked a huge change for Green Day. Four years after their last album, Warning, Billy Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool emerged a different band: black hair-dyed, eye-linered, and tie wearing. This new Green Day put down their bongs, took their hands out of their pants, and sung about politics. This met with a mixed reaction. They lost fans who thought they had sold out with their emo traits. They faced some curious older fans who weren’t sure if they approved or not and most interestingly, they welcomed a new, younger fanbase. I admired Green Day for having the guts to try something so different, even though I was not a fan of American Idiot. My main problem with the album was I felt they had lost their energy which was a major facet of their sound. I know album opener “American Idiot” has pace but I felt it had no soul, I felt the agenda got in the way.

21st Century Breakdown however combines the energy and philosophy with good effect. It is split in to three acts to create a kind of rock opera: Act 1 is entitled ‘Heroes And Cons’ and encompasses tracks 2-7 (the crackly Billy Joe lullaby intro not included); Act 2, tracks 8-13, is called ‘Charlatans and Saints’; and Act 3, tracks 14-18, ‘Horseshoes and Handgrenades’.

The album gets off to a shaky start. Act 1, includes the first single from the album, ‘Know Your Enemy’, which sounds like a Green Day song of old but slowed down and played with very little enthusiasm. ‘Christian’s Inferno’, with its annoying pop awareness, sounds like they have taken the drums from A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ and the chorus from the opening credits of a kids TV show. Three of the opening six tracks take the same format: slow piano/guitar build up, then speed up and power through the rest of the song (although 21st Century Breakdown is much better than the other two).

But ‘Christian’s Inferno’ breaks the threat of a pattern before we go into Act 2 where the album really takes off. The shouty, aggressive ‘East Jesus Nowhere’, the frantic ‘Peacemaker’ (which sounds a little like a James Bond theme speeded up), and the eastern European tinged ‘¿Viva La Gloria? [Little Girl]’ being the stand out tracks. Act 3 begins with the rocking Hives-alike ‘Horseshoes and Handgrenades’ and includes the Weezer-sounding ’21 Guns’.

Green Day continue to write about contentious issues (religion, the government, war) and they deal with Billy Joe’s disillusionment with modern America . The world Green Day emerged into is a very different one now and the new Green Day have realised there are more important issues than the ones inside their trousers.

At almost an hour and ten minutes long, it’s a comprehensive collection of new material, but for one or two fillers. Saying that, it doesn’t feel that long and rarely drags. At no point did I reach for the ‘skip’ button or look at my watch.

It’s a good — if unspectacular — return by a band that continues to evolve its sound and still has plenty to say. Their lyrics may not be as much about getting high or self-lovin’ or personal mental chaos anymore and they may have lost some of the self-deprecating humour, but there’s only so many times a band can say the same thing. I mean, the present-day Green Day who are a few years older and several million dollars richer are not going to have the same worries as their younger selves.

21st Century Breakdown is not an immediate hit with me, but I think after a couple more listens I’ll learn to love it.