For more than 20 years Green Day has delivered quality rock or pop punk to audiences worldwide. This 8th studio album from Green Day delivers the standard styles of this East Bay California power trio. 21st Century Breakdown is viewed as a rock opera in three acts, as was their very successful American Idiot (2004). Billie Joe Armstrong has described 21st Century breakdown as a “Snapshot of the era in which we live as we question and try to make sense of the selfish manipulation going around us, whether it be the government, religion, media or frankly any form of authority. One distinct Green Day musical style is a driving punk symphony combined with rebellious and intelligent lyrics as in the title track of 21st Century Breakdown. Similarly styled is the extra catchy Know Your Enemy which Green Day performed on the season finale of Saturday Night Live.
But Green Day is not just head banging punk. In Viva La Gloria! and Before the Lobotomy, Green Day exhibits another style of the band, which begins quietly and sweetly and launches at an appropriate moment into straight up rock and roll. Green Day band members are Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, vocals), and Tré Cool (drums, percussion). While all three men in this band rock out in a big way, it is the unison that Green Day achieves in terms of the simple chord changes between bass and guitar and the rhythms then duplicated by the drums. This simple percussive wall of music is simple but powerful and interspersed with moments of suspense building pause and silence.
There are also some Green Day songs that are heavily Beatles influenced such as the low key and melodic Last Night on Earth. East Jesus Nowhere offers a swinging, hand-clapping cynical view of Heroes and Cons. Peacemaker is a rocking vaguely eastern European anti-authority song that asks for “death to the ones at the end of the serenade.” Very Gogol Bordello.
The last act of this Green Day album is entitled Horseshoes and Hand Grenades and offers more of the same; political and social commentary delivered in such a rocking style that you almost forget how questioning and cynical the lyrics can be at times. Restless Heart Syndrome is also a lushly symphonic Beatles style of song.
There is over an hour of music on 21st Century Breakdown with lyrics and music that remind us that we are in a global recession and that the United States is a nation at war. I recommend listening to 21st Century in its entirety from start to finish. As songwriters, all of Green Day gets writing credits and have collaborated successfully to create a great follow up to American Idiot.
