Green Day – American Idiot (2004)

I don't know many other bands who would've been internationally successful, then forgotten and then risen to success yet again. Green Day did all of this. Their album Dookie in the mid-90's was a big success, but after that album with each album Green Day became less interesting and the masses didn't notice what they were doing anymore, until they released this massive hit album almost ten years later. This time the band seemed to be a lot more political and it attacked George W Bush's politics. Maybe this was behind the success. Green day was always quite commercial when it comes to anything related to punk music, but on this album they stepped even a bit further, including outright stadium rock songs on the album. This approach seemed to work and Green Day started filling stadiums for their gigs and a whole new generation found the band.



I don't know if I would've gotten interested in Green Day if I had first encountered it during this album. It was quite mainstream and I was interested in all things indie during that time. My old interest in the band, however, made me curious to find out why Green Day was once again topping the charts. I think American Idiot definitely brought something fresh to the band's sound. I remember seeing even reviews where it was claimed that Green Day had started making AOR (adult oriented rock). I don't know about that, but the melodies were definitely catchier and production very polished. This album can be seen as something of a transition from old skate punk Green Day into a stadium rock band, because the even later albums have moved further and further away from the band's punk roots.

This album had a number of massive hit singles. The title track American Idiot, Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Wake Me Up When September Ends were playing everywhere around the release of this album. As often is the case, this time as well, I think the best songs did not become hits. I really like the melodic song Holiday and Homecoming which is super long for a punk band song.

The hit songs I already mentioned were playing a lot on TV as well. Music videos weren't anymore what they used to be in the 90's, because MTV had become more of a reality tv channel by then, but whenever there were music videos somewhere, these songs would be played. I'll link the Boulevard of Broken Dreams video here. This is one of the most adult oriented rock songs on this album. It sounds pretty much like mainstream American pop rock. The band's appearance has also changed to resemble some of the emo bands of the early 00's.

I have almost seen Green Day live. What does that mean, you ask. It means that I was at my friends' place on their balcony where I could hear Green Day play on a nearby field in Helsinki. you could see a part of the stage as well. So the conditions weren't ideal, but I wouldn't have paid to see them, so this was good enough for me.

I was kind of excited about this new sound of Green Day when the album came out, but I feel like the excitement wore off quite quickly and nowadays I hardly ever listen to this album anymore. I guess that's what happens with catchy hit songs quite often, it's easy to get into them, but they also get boring quite quickly, especially because they're overplayed everywhere.

Listen to the album on Spotify.