The Green Day album with the “best” songs, according to Billy Joe Armstrong
Plenty of people would cite American Idiot as the last truly great Green Day album. It would be a contrary fan who opted for any of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! or ¡Tré!. Few fans would even remember Revolution Radio, and though some might say that their most recent release, Saviors, was a return to form, it didn’t have the cultural impact that surrounded their earliest albums or their opus, American Idiot.
It was certainly their most popular new release when it came out. Thanks to songs such as the explosive title track, ‘Jesus of Suburbia’, as well as ‘Holiday’, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’, the record introduced the band to a whole new audience and fan base, capturing the zeitgeist in a way that they had only come close to doing before and maybe wouldn’t quite ever manage again.
The political nature of their feted 2004 album—written in response to and protest against the dreadful Bush administration—is now, unfortunately, applicable again to the disastrous Trump presidency which has led to a resurgence in its popularity and notoriety. But it was the follow-up release that front-man Billie Joe Armstrong speaks about with greater excitement and warmth.
Though he admitted that the 2009 record 21st Century Breakdown stood on the shoulders of American Idiot, Armstrong said when promoting the newer record that “we had the opportunity to be more creative than ever before” with it. “There‘s a song called ‘Before the Lobotomy’, and a song called ‘Know Your Enemy’, and one called ‘21 Guns’. On 21st Century Breakdown, we kind of took our creative ambition that extra step, or two or three steps,” Armstrong expanded. “I think it’s some of the best stuff that we’ve ever written.”
While the songs that Armstrong highlighted probably are the strongest on the album and would have the most chance of standing alongside the best of American Idiot or even Dookie and Nimrod, the overall sound, feel, and energy of the album doesn’t stand up alongside the best of the rest of their work.
‘Before the Lobotomy’ would sound a lot better if you didn’t already know ‘American Idiot’ and were reminded of that superior song every time the main riff repeated. In fact, for most of the best moments on this album, there is a better example of their abilities on the album that preceded it. 21st Century Breakdown doesn’t sound so much like they were standing on the shoulders of American Idiot, shaking it down for parts they could re-purpose, or trying and failing to get lightning to strike in the same spot for a second time.
Curiously, though, the song on the album that really pushes their creativity an extra step or two is not one that Armstrong thought to name-check or one that the group have played live all that often (and indeed, not at all since 2010). ‘¡Viva la Gloria!’ (little girl) is a glorious gothic anthem that combines Green Day’s best anthemic and melodic qualities with a south-of-the-border, underworld feel, not dissimilar to that found in the My Chemical Romance song ‘Mama’, from the theatrical 2005 concept album The Black Parade. And if there was ever an album that took creative licence from American Idiot and moved it on a step or two, it was that record, not 21st Century Breakdown.
