During the heyday of grunge, Green Day were the merry prankster goofballs to Nirvana’s grumpy, introverted troubadours. Come the Noughties however, Green Day are now veritable granddads of dumb rock, held responsible for an onslaught of turgid, stylised imitators like Sum 41, Blink 182 et al.
Ultimately, after ten years of making records, Green Day appear to be a band happy to remain in some kind of one-dimensional dementia. Their last ‘comeback album’, Warning, signalled a move towards a more mature sound, yet it suffered a savaging at the hands of the critics. On American Idiot, ignorance is bliss, as it were, and it seems that Green Day’s maxim is; if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Yet, when you’re pushing 40, the three-chord ‘mayhem’ that you’re intent on regurgitating seems to lose some of its impact.
In saying that, Green Day’s unique brand of upbeat noise is still as stubbornly catchy as ever. Inoffensive and uninspired as Green Day sometimes are, there’s a lot to be said for longevity…Pearl Jam and Nirvana may have rubbed the critics up the right way, yet it’s Billie Jo and his scissor-kicking cohorts who are still releasing the records.
There are moments on the album where the band have abandoned their skate-punk persona – ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Are We The Waiting’ appear to be stabs at a less hysterical, more reflective sound, yet these tracks serve to prove that Green Day are at their best when working their trademark punk sound.
Overall, American Idiot is a triumph of noise over resonance, and it’s almost as though the last 10 years have barely happened. These punks are unlikely to make your day.