IN DEFENSE OF GREEN DAY'S AMERICAN IDIOT (by Jeff Rosenstock)
I was reading Jeff Rosenstock’s blog and found this to remind me why I listened to this record. I think y’all should check it.
1 month agoIN DEFENSE OF GREEN DAY’S AMERICAN IDIOT
Point of order #1: Forget the eyeliner. I have no idea what happened there, what is happening there, so let’s just try and remember that these dudes are old and this choice is one of the very few wrong aesthetic choices they’ve made. We all make mistakes n shit.
Point of order #2: Forget the overdramatic music videos. SHIT. What were those about? I mean, I guess music videos aren’t created to relate to people in their twenties. They’re supposed to be visual tools for the younger set to get interested in things; politics, music, punk subculture, driving down dusty roads? I don’t know. Fuck that Samuel Bayer guy. I watched him speak about these videos… JEEEEEEZ.
And I guess that’s how this album is remembered amongst my generation, who first heard this album and resoundingly acclaimed it - critically and personally, I heard this blasting out of cars at punk shows on tour across the country for a month after it came out - and now remember it as the record that turned Green Day into a behemoth of a rock band. They were almost punk again! After they put out a tamely mixed record of pretty decent songs, we were JUST READY TO LET THEM BACK INTO THE UNDERGROUND! BUT THEN THEY GOT FAMOUS AGAIN! OH NO!!!
It seems that Green Day walks this unfair line where they are allowed to break new ground and everyone will praise them for it, but once this style which is new to the scene starts to get imitated (blue hair in the 90’s, glockenspiels, timpanis and anti-bush sentiments in the aughts) the old fans turn their backs and make way for younger fans to come in in droves, and take over til it’s time to turn their backs. Old fans like to blame Green Day for the onslaught of bombastic punk-operetta that has been unearthed since American Idiot was successful (My Chemmy Ro Ro and the bunch), but SHIT do you remember where mainstream punk was heading before that? Does anyone remember Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne and the tons of other shitty shitty fashion-pop bands that Green Day put in their place by doing what a punk band is supposed to, take chances? Remember Ashlee Simpson’s record?
What American Idiot did in 2004 is the same thing as what the Clash did in the 1980’s - they killed commercial punk rock forever. By stepping so far outside of the box that they started to seem less and less categorizable, they signaled the Fallout Boys of the world to drop the tag of “punk” to sell their music and most of these underground bands never fail to point out that they are NOT punk bands. When the Clash released politically charged dance jams on Combat Rock they showed the world that punk equated to your whole presentation and definitely not the standard three chords played fast fast fast. While Green Day stick to very few chords, there is a ton of next level shit that hadn’t been heard from a punk band in the mainstream on this record, mostly heard in the two nine-minute bookends, but also by bringing influence of bands like Dillinger Four and Husker Du to people and places who would have never heard it. They kinda made a new generation start caring about politics and researching what’s going on in the world, and even if it didn’t resonate in that election it seems like it’s becoming more and more clear to people.
OH AND ALL THE SONGS ARE FUCKING CATCHY AS HELL. From each mini-melody in “Jesus of Suburbia” to the simple but mind-blowing guitar lead in “Whatshername” even to the shitty but still hummable “Extraordinary Girl.” THAT IS NOT AN EASY THING TO DO.
So let’s re-cap. It made a lot of young kids start thinking about politics, their government and the future of the earth. It made faux-punk bands stop pretending they were punk bands and start acting like the arena rock bands that were in their hearts, leaving the underground aesthetic to the outcasts. It brought relatively new thoughts and ideas (concept rock! mini-operas!) to the world via punk-rock’s most visible band. It had thirteen very very good songs. And funny enough, they were all pretty much about not knowing what the hell is going on, which I think is a sentiment anyone can agree with a lot of the time.
Just listen to the record again - it still holds up pretty well. When they were aping Screeching Weasel and Crimpshrine with a little more pop flair, Green Day were retroactively claimed as a great band but whenever they start breaking new ground on the radar people start to give them shit. Well, maybe it’s all that eyeliner and shitty music videos. (via re: music)