It goes without saying that nothing Green Day did subsequently could ever match Dookie. The year 1994 was the three-chord wonders' moment. Not only was Dookie the album that finally broke punk into the mainstream, but it also carried the 90s' second-most iconic cover after Nevermind's naked swimming child, and it was quite possibly the best release the genre has ever seen. Similarly, Green Day's music will never again touch the mainstream cultural consciousness the way their atypical acoustic ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" from 1997 did; after all, Seinfeld isn't around anymore, except in reruns.
It may even come as a surprise that, in 2004, the band Green Day is still in existence. The legends have been replaced by younger, inferior groups like Blink-182 and New Found Glory on the radio. Green Day released one album of new material between 1998 and 2003, 2000's Warning, a work that was mature and respectable, but hardly exciting. It may come as a shock, then, that Green Day's new album, American Idiot, is both exciting and excellent. Very f***ing excellent.
American Idiot was conceived as a "punk opera," Green Day's version of the Who's Tommy. Green Day actually borrows the messianic theme of Tommy's final side and creates a storyline around the characters of the Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy, who may or may not be one and the same and are the result of some combination of accurate commentary on fame and delusions of self-grandeur by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the Jesus, but the album does have an epic sweep to it and a unifying theme of confusion and sadness at unrealized dreams. American Idiot is Green Day's most ambitious album both thematically and musically, and a strong success.
Key to this achievement are a pair of nine-minute tracks with multiple movements near the beginning and end of the album. "Jesus of Suburbia" is pretty incredible, jumping from one catchy song to another. A decade or so ago, Green Day had "Chump" segue into "Longview" and "Brain Stew" into "Jaded," but this is something else.
Complicated backup vocal arrangements also help. These are most prevalent on the mid-album "Are We The Waiting" and the grand finale, "Homecoming." Tré Cool's drum work throughout the album is excellent.
But the real reason that American Idiot succeeds is that it is a truly stellar collection of songs, whether they achieve a unified transcendent message or not. The reverb-drenched "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is as great and nearly as radio-friendly as "When I Come Around." Seriously. "Give Me Novacaine" is a gently strummed nugget with Hawaiian noises that eventually get obliterated under power chords. "Letterbomb" is a speedy punk nugget with a 24-carat chorus.
Another of American Idiot's highlights is its sharp political commentary. There was a nod towards politics on Warning's single "Minority," but this time around, Green Day is serious. The opening title track and first single is a barrage against the state of the nation ("Maybe I am the faggot America / I'm not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda! / And sing along to the age of paranoia").
"Holiday" is even more explicit, as Armstrong "beg[s] to dream and differ from the hollow lies" and suggests expatriation as long as it's not to France, whose destruction at the hands of the American government is imminent. This is about the same thing I've concluded in the case of a Bush victory November 2, so it was nice to hear it put into song.
After the "Homecoming" grand finale, the album ends with the coda of "Whatsername," a musing remembrance on the fate of a girl from the past. After all the high-flying big statement stuff, the closer is perfect in simplicity. American Idiot concludes as Green Day's most satisfying and best work since Dookie.