Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown Album Review

Album Cover

Track Listing
CD art
=======================

Originally meant for this post to be up by Friday, 15th May 09' but with unforseen schedule clashes in the teaching schedule @ Marymount Convent Primary, had me scurrying around rearranging timeslots, timetables etc. And now, to the long awaited review of Green Day's highly anticipated Album, also MTV's artist of the month! 21st Century Breakdown.

============================

For starters, this isn't your regular ''Green Day'' album. It ain't no American Idiot, ain't no Dookie, Kerplunk or anything you've heard before. This is one album where Green Day stretches its repertoire of fast beating good ol' school rock & roll for more melodious tunes and dramatically poetic lyrics.

Yes, expect to be pleasantly surpised or dissapointed fans, as Green Day take a twist with Stadium rockish vocals and mass hand waving sing-a-long styled songs, for example, Last Night On Earth. And for the first time, you will be able to distinctively hear piano intros in these Green Day songs. While not all a bad thing, it is somewhat new approach and most would still be grasping the concept with the change in tune or rather genre as Green Day moves past their American Idiot success.

The album is divided into 3 acts, Heroes and Cons, Charlatans and Saints, Horseshoes and Handgrenades, and follows two antagonists, Gloria and Christian, through the struggles of coping with the ongoing chaos of the world around them which they're living in.

While in my honest opinion, 21st Century Breakdown is a breakaway of Green Day from sounds which they're very distinctively know for, it is a refreshing turn as the lyrics wrench out the most poetic styles as yet seen by Green Day. With a distinctive line that goes

'' Oh dream, America dream.

Can't leave and see from rainstorms 'til dawn.

Oh bleed, America bleed.

Believe what you read from heroes and cons"

Whilst relatively mild in terms of politically fused rock as opposed to American Idiot, it still does contain lines and references to songs they've done before, songs like American Idiot are mildly referenced with respect to the previous president, and working class hero is referred in the song "21st Century Breakdown"...

the more definitve and distinct Green Day sounds are still around, in songs like ¡Viva La Gloria! and East Jesus Nowhere, and Horseshoes and Handgrenades. Fast, raw and punchy. most definitely songs most would be able to relate to.

Diehard Green Day fans would be able to distinct nips and bits of their previous ''experimental sounds'' put into play from their previous band projects like THE NETWORK and THE FOXBORO HOT TUBS. New wave sounds and 60's style recordings before songs seen in those experiment albums can be found in songs such as East Jesus Nowhere (radio background noises etc 60's style intro) seen in Foxoboro hot tubs songs, and in Christian's Inferno by the distorted screaming styles from The Network.

All in all, this album experimental as it may sound, would be a staple for musicians and listeners around and has the lyrical depth for all to sink their teeth into. While it may not be on par as that of American Idiot, it still never fails to deliver the punchline at every end of curtain call. Green Day while they didn't deliver the album we hoped or expected, sure did pitch us one helluvan album to keep us pacified for a long time to come.

in the meantime i'm headthumpin' to horseshoes and handgrenades and lighter waving' over Last night on Earth. 5 years for this album, and i'm sure as hell gonna devour it. Now i wonder how long they'd take for the next album. Another 5?

p.s. this album's 18 songs long....