Green Day, '21st Century Breakdown'

Release date: May 15, 2009
Record label: Reprise
Official Web site: http://www.greenday.com/

The buzz: Green Day shed their punk image and became respectable, rock superstars with the politically-charged 2004 concept album “American Idiot.” After having a bit of throwback fun with last year’s Foxboro Hot Tubs side-project, Green day return with a three-act rock opera that’s every bit as ambitious as "Idiot.”

The verdict: Like its title suggests, “21st Century Breakdown” examines the anxiety of the times, especially as experienced by the country’s youth. The songs loosely chronicle the lives of post-adolescent lovers Christian and Gloria. But like most rock operas, the plot doesn’t matter as much as the individual tracks, which, in this case, are dynamic, smart and consistently catchy. Green Day sound determined to dethrone U2, Coldplay and company as the most important rock band on the planet, delivering precision thrash and thoughtful power balladry with equal aplomb. The lyrics adroitly address heavy topics such as the death of the American Dream and the often unhealthy clutch of Christianity. Delicious quotables pepper the disc: “My generation is zero/I never made it as a working class hero,” Billie Joe Armstrong snarls on the title track. It’s a line as memorable as the one he dropped 15 years ago about masturbation—yet decidedly more meaningful.  

Did you know? “21st Century Breakdown” is Green Day’s first album produced by Garbage drummer Butch Vig, who also helmed Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Smashing Pumpkins’ “Siamese Dream.”