Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown (2009)

To me personally, Green Day will always be the band that I learned to know as a teenager. This band was all about Dookie and songs Basket Case and When I Come Around. I'm sure many others in addition to me were kind of surprised when Green Day became a hot topic again after their album American Idiot. They had reinvented themselves with much more political approach. The musical style is closer to mainstream rock than on the 90's skate punk albums. There were quite a few good songs on these new albums though. I wouldn't say that they are very deep songs or the kinds of songs that I would listen to all the time, but I still have to tip my hat to a band that succeeds in rising again from the ashes to become one of the most popular bands in the world after almost being forgotten. 21st Century Breakdown is the second part of this rock opera come back of Green Day.



Much like it's predecessor, American Idiot, this album is a political commentary of American politics in the 00's. Back then most of the criticism was aimed at the libertarian politicians with their austerity programmes and at Bush administration's destructive foreign policy. This album was released right when Obama was about to become the president. They didn't yet have any idea that only eight years later we would be in even bigger problems with Trump, Brexit and rise of nationalism all over the world. All the problems back in 2009 seem quite small compared to this time's approaching apocalypse. I'm not saying that all this criticism wouldn't have been necessary back then, but I'm just saying that this album is very strongly a product of its time.

There are some excellent melodic songs on this album. Green Day really knows how to write catchy hit songs. Know Your Enemy and 21 Guns were probably the biggest hits playing over and over on the radio and the music videos were shown all the time everywhere. Here's a link to Know Your Enemy music video. This album even won the best rock album Grammy. My personal favourites from this album are probably ¡Viva La Gloria! and Peacemaker. These songs have the best melodies.

The main reason for me to buy this album was that it was cheap and I really liked a couple of songs. It's an ugly jewel case CD, but it was really cheap. Actually, if you think about it, the cover picture is quite nice and this would look quite good on vinyl, but to be honest, i would've never bought this album with vinyl prices.

Now that i think about it, Green Day's American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown will probably stay in history for their huge success and for the reason that they describe their time quite well. For this reason, I'm quite happy to own these albums. They are an important part of musical history. I don't know if these albums are timeless enough for future generations to bother listening to them, but I think they are significant 00's artefacts that are worthy of some kind of time capsule treatment. I also really like the fact that someone in this age is making concept albums with a clear theme.

Listen to the album on Spotify.