Ann 2
Alain
JennYGreen Day - 21st Century Breakdown Album Review
June 2nd 2009 01:56
Genre: Punk rock, Alternative rock
Length: 69:16
Label: Reprise
Five years after the hugely successful American Idiot, Green Day are back with another rock opera album titled 21st Century Breakdown. Divided into three acts, 21st Century Breakdown went straight to the U.S. Billboards' number one spot in its first week before being topped by Eminem's Relapse two weeks ago.
The album starts with a short into titled Song Of The Century. It's a one-minute track where Billy Joe Armstrong's voice seems to come out of a radio as the noise of static surrounds his singing.
The first act, Heroes And Cons, begins after Song Of The Century and contains six tracks. First, the title-track, 21st Century Breakdown, bridges the gap between American Idiot and this album. Its piano intro followed by the drums' entrance is reminiscent of the intro to “The Saints Are Coming” but the rest of the track has the exact same sound as American Idiot. As a matter of fact, this track in particular sounds a lot like “Jesus Of Surburbia” mainly because Billy Joe sings in the same melodic tone.
The second track of the first act is also the first single of the album. Titled Know Your Enemy, the song has the kind of energy that makes you want to jump up and break something. It's definitely the kind of song that will play in arenas all summer long.
In ¡Viva La Gloria!, the first verse only features a piano along with a violin to accompany the singing but the song turns high-tempo as soon as it hits the chorus. It's basically a track calling to revolution.
Before The Lobotomy is probably the first song that shows how Green Day's sound has subtly evolved. It starts out slow with great singing by Billy Joe then the full band pops in and out after every line from the first verse to finally erupt completely in the eighth verse. The song feels more like a classic rock track at the start then the usual pop-punk fare. Somehow Green Day successfully mixed both genre to create some sort of uber-pop-punk.
Christian's Inferno, a high-tempo song, brings Green Day back to the pop-punk sphere. There is nothing really memorable about this track save for the drums which sound a lot like The Go-Go's “We Got The Beat.”
Heroes And Cons concludes with Last Night On Earth, a piano-driven ballad that is probably the best song out of this act. Until this point, most of the songs were quite similar to those on American Idiot. Despite the great start of Before The Lobotomy, the song did end up sounding just like the others towards the end. Last Night On Earth is different as it stays on the same pace all the way to the end. I don't want to sound blasphemous but this was a very Beatles-esque kind of track. A beautiful song.
The second act, called Charlatans And Saints, also has six tracks and begins with East Jesus Nowhere, a medium-tempo song. It begins with someone messing around with a radio dial as we get to hear snippets of various radio stations and then the guitar kicks in with the main riff. Although the song isn't really extraordinary, something about it truly shows how they managed to improve their sound from American Idiot. I don't really know how to explain it. It might be the lyrics, it might be the neat bassline in the second verse, or just the way the song was produced overall; all I know is that it sounds sort of the same, but better. I know, it doesn't make any sense, but that's how I feel.
With its fast-paced acoustic guitar, Peacemaker sounds like a cross between a Mexican song and folk rock. It's one of the best track of the album.
The third track of the second act is Last Of The American Girls, a song where “the last of the American girls” is described. Like East Jesus Nowhere, there's nothing that really sets this track apart from the rest, yet it is still a pretty good song. There's also a sense of connection here as the ending goes right into the start of Murder City which is the next track. There's not much to say about Murder City. It's a high-tempo song, similar to the stuff in American Idiot.
¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) follows Murder City. The first verse along with the instrumental in the beginning sounds a lot like My Chemical Romance's “Mama” from The Black Parade album, another rock opera record. The instrumental is excellent as it goes well with Billy Joe's singing and the guitar solo is pretty good. It's one of the best tracks of the album.
Restless Heart Syndrome brings Green Day out of the punk sphere and more into a rock/alternative frame thanks to the presence of a piano and an orchestra. Billy Joe delivers again on the songwriting and singing parts of the song. The ending is also great as the instrumental reaches a climax. After my first listen, I rated this one as a great track while I rated the previous one as a good track. Now, I prefer ¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) but I'll probably change my mind after listening to them again. It goes to show how good this album is. It only gets better and better.
The final act, Horseshoes And Handgrenades, has only five songs but is probably the best part of the album. The high-tempo Horseshoes And Handgrenades starts off the third act with a bang. The instrumental sounds familiar but I can't quite place it. It sounds like the kind of song you would hear on a commercial but the first line - “I'm not f***ing around” - quickly takes that idea out of your head. This song is quite edgy and Billy Joe adds to it with the rage in his voice and some screaming towards the end.
The Static Age is another solid high-tempo track. Nothing really stands out apart from the great songwriting.
The second single of the album, 21 Guns, is probably my favorite track out of the eighteen songs. Like Last Night On Earth, this is more of a classic rock song than punk. Billy Joe's singing is great especially in the chorus where the title gets mentioned. The singing isn't the only thing working in this track. The instrumental is also great. The overall feel of this song is just perfect with a tight production that makes every note count. A superb song.
American Eulogy shares the same format as two songs in American Idiot - "Jesus Of Suburbia" and "Homecoming." Indeed, like those two songs, American Eulogy is actually split into two parts: "Mass Hysteria" and "Modern World." The track begins like Song Of The Century, the album's intro, only the lyrics are different. "Mass Hysteria"'s lyrics allude to several moments of crisis in the United States, namely Hurricane Katrina and the wildfires of California while "Modern World"'s lyrics clearly state “I don't wanna live in the modern world.”
The final track of the album is also one of its best. See The Light has a catchy melody and a good overall production.
All in all, 21st Century Breakdown is definitely a step forward from American Idiot. All the tracks are solid with little to no misses. Although the album is filled with the regular punk-pop fare that's been airing on the radio since Blink-182 came out with Enema Of The State and The Offspring with “Pretty Fly For A White Guy,” there are some great rock ballads on here that raise up the bar in terms of the album's quality. For me, it's definitely one of the best albums so far this year (that I've listened to). Every track fits well in the big picture and they're all entertaining. I give it 4.25 out of 5.
Note: We've been pretty quiet here on this site during these past few months, but we're slowly getting back into the groove of things. Alain will post the review of Method Man & Redman's Blackout! 2 sometime this week and next week we'll do another collab-review similar to what we did with Relapse. This time we'll review the Snowgoons' (a group of hip-hop DJs from Germany) latest titled A Fist In The Thought so stay tuned.
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