Green Day – American Idiot

This record showed up in my mailbox two days after I watched the first round of Bush vs. Kerry. And as I’ve repeatedly noted, I mostly live a life of isolation, but I’ve heard the musings about how this is a concept album, of sorts. Green Day pretty much spent most of the first Bush term between albums.

So after the other night’s display of halting, confused monomania the first thing that leaps to mind upon reading the title of this album is Bush the Younger. I’m sure there will be, if there hasn’t already been, plenty of dissection of the literary content. But almost no matter how well-turned the verbiage is, if the music sucks or plods or is overly repetitive what good is it, really?

Once more they’re back working with their A&R man/compadré Rob Cavallo and his miasma of reverb. And that does make a blur, to some degree, of its fifty-seven minutes. I find myself missing the cleanliness and articulation of Warning:, the one multinational-funded album done without Cavallo. But they still rock!

The title track, and first single, leads off. It alternates loud, hazy guitar lines with isolated, megaphone-like vocals over semi-hollow kick & toms for the answering lines in the verses and then goes pedal-to-the-metal with a sprinkle of sweetners for the choruses. Those toms are key and the guitar solo is as lyrical as it is swift. This is 2’54” that is honed to a knife’s edge. (It seems to me that Billie Joe is making some kind of allusion to the third Buzzcocks’ album, A Different Kind Of Tension, in starting the chorus with the line “Welcome to a new kind of tension” though I’m not sure I know what it is.)

There are two nine-minute suites: Jesus Of Suburbia and Homecoming. While very tightly arranged they both come across more as medleys rather than something more intricately woven and thus greater than the sum of its parts, along the lines of the gold standard for this kind of thing, the Who’s A Quick One, While He’s Away.

But there are intriguing things going on: In the first one, the title segment is inlaid with pure Beach Boys-like backing “oooh”s. In segment 2, City Of The Dead, Cavallo plays a clear, delicate piano which combines with the rhythm guitar riffs – and even Billie Joe’s phrasing somewhat – to raise the ghost of Mott The Hoople in its verses. Segment 3, I Don’t Care (not the Ramones number) brings a Rottenesque sneering vocal, though efxed up, and the return of those backing vocals at the end.

Dearly Beloved, segment four, is slightly more than a minute long and chorus-less, with a pared back sound led by an acoustic guitar – once past the intro – a little shuffle beat, some lovely, uncredited, chimes and a more ethereal version of those backing “oooh”s — more like out of some ‘50s Pop-Vocal record. The last segment, Tales Of Another Broken Home, is an average rocker for them, most notable for its dulcet guitar solo which leads into a relatively quiet voice and piano coda before the big Rock ending.

Things drag some in the middle of the album where they approach a little too close to Modern-Rock clichédom with the ponderous power ballad Boulevard Of Broken Dreams and the portentous, mid-tempo Are We Waiting with its choral backing vocals. But the decks get cleared out by the galloping Punk-Rock of St. Jimmy (a recurring character – shades of Quadrophenia) with guitars revved into the red and the occasional gang backing vocals which turn back into those “oooh”s on the second go round in the last minute.

That’s followed by the gentle, acoustic guitar verses & bit more frantic, electric guitar choruses of Give Me Novacaine (sic). The most curious, as well as possibly my fave number is Extraordinary Girl. It starts with just over 30 seconds of African drums and some very faint, textural guitar, then it slams into a great, fuzzy Pop-Rock tune, with the lead vocals double tracked. Tré Cool’s beats are powerful and as solid as a Peterbilt 358A, and then at just the right spot comes a series of handclaps – like the grenadine in a Tequila Sunrise.

This record entered the charts upon release, first in the UK and now, here in the U.S. of A. at “#1 with a bullet” – though at 256,000 units sold it’s a middlin’ #1. That took me by surprise. And somehow it makes me feel a little more hopeful.

[Released by Warner 2004]