Rhapsody Reviews: Green Day

In 1994, people around the country acquainted themselves with Green Day primarily through a song about masturbation, but even back then the band was busy chronicling the malaise of American suburban life, a voice they would ultimately come to own. On April 8, 1994, minutes before the filming of their first video for "Longview," the boys got the news of Kurt Cobain's death. Many claim this was the day grunge died, and it's probably crude to say Green Day took the reins of leading a restless youth from that day forth. But it may be true that the timing was just right, their droll commentary and precious hooks providing a much-needed outlet for every kid who ever felt a tinge of boredom, disillusionment and lack of motivation.

I imagine that a decade later, kids found the same sort of comfort with American Idiot. In 2004, it was a different decade and a different century, the political climate was decidedly chillier, there was a different war in the Middle East -- but there was still the same alienation, the same confusion, the same disquiet brought on by contemporary constraints that the band so concisely recounted through "Jesus of Suburbia" and the booming, tight-knit sound of American Idiot. The world was teetering on a more agitated fault and required richer, more conceptual lyrics and complex arrangements, ones that not just teens with raging hormones and bitterness toward their parents could embrace. Green Day delivered just that and made it all sound catchy to boot.

Five years later, Americans still aren't sure who or what an enemy is, and our attention spans are shorter than ever (looking at you, Twitter!). The political landscape may appear more stable, but it cannot mask the restiveness that still courses through the veins of teens, suburbanites and working-class heroes -- demographics that Billie Joe targets on 21st Century Breakdown.

The album is less the straightforward concept album that American Idiot was and more a crossword puzzle whose intricate parts connect into a gratifying whole. It follows the story of two young lovers, Christian and Gloria ("the class of '13'"), as they question Sunday services, conspiracy theories, alert colors, deceivers, cheaters, dreamers, lovers, fighters. A three-act epic, the album comments on the elusive American dream by "a generation zero" that is "raised by the bastards of 1969." It swells with a Tommy-sized authority (Tommy, ironically, was released in 1969) that weaves together Oi! chants, Clash riffs, '80s pop metal, maniacal laughter, seething skin slaps and a slide-guitar-laden love ballad. And that's just the first act.

Act II jolts with spaghetti Western nuances and gypsy grooves as Billie Joe foams at the mouth with livid whispers of "don't test me" and comments on being "desperate but not hopeless" -- perhaps his most succinct sum-up of Americans' collective sentiment toward the country's status post-Bush. In Act III, he proclaims he's not "f*ckin' around" in a pogo-bop thrasher, and he gives the entire album its climax with one of the snottiest yet most authoritative sing-alongs: "I don't want to live in the modern world/ Mass hysteria!"

21st Century Breakdown is one of the most relevant, fun and cohesive albums of the decade. Though the members of Green Day may be thirtysomethings, they understand that it's kids like the fictional Christian and Gloria that can tell the story of the struggles in and around us with the most conviction -- it's their innocence, their willingness to question and their need to revolt that ultimately inspire all the cynics and fogies to remember why it is we all yearn so much for our youth.

And it's albums like this that remind me why I still go back and spin a record like Dookie from time to time: to regress to those unforgiving yet crucial formative years when I came to discover how music can, if absolutely nothing else, simply help us to get by. Green Day have a unique talent for making kids feel relevant, not helpless, amidst the sociopolitical tension and hysteria that's happening all around them. And in such a defining period in one's life, that's an understanding that's never forgotten. So, should we still care about Green Day? Absolutely.