Green Day
American Idiot

THE REVIEW

Stop everything. I can already imagine many of you foaming at the mouth, eyes bloodshot, and gripped by an unhealthy desire to meet me just to gnaw on my bones at the sight of the rating. Keep calm, take a breath, lay down your revolvers and let’s analyze the situation calmly, while (humbly) doing a bit of history.

Between the late sixties and early seventies, a musical genre developed on the East Coast later disparagingly defined as “punk” (Literally “junk”). Although the fathers of punk were, therefore, American, it found its biggest interpreters in British artists (From the Sex Pistols to the Clash). Beyond the great musical innovations it embraced (Speed, explicit lyrics, raw sounds) the true punk revolt can be found in a new imagery which various currents drew from later, from glam-rock to metal. This refers to the emergence of a culture based on the rejection of political and social repression (Does anyone remember Thatcher? Of course you do) and the exaltation of anarchy as the only way out, given the lack of prospects summarized in the famous expression “No future”. Like any revolt, punk also reached the so-called “fashion” sector, highlighting the impossibility of this being an “alternative” phenomenon, but rather targeted at everyone (Dare I say commercial?). We're talking about studs, safety pins, torn clothes, impracticable haircuts, and Vivienne Westwood (who thirty years ago joined the transgressors of “No future” and now has more money than Croesus… reminds me of someone… Johnny Rotten! That’s who!).

But today times have changed, socio-political problems too, and I (Call me an idiot, I don't care) refuse to imagine a world without a future. And what happens to punk? It evolves. Various subgenres emerge including pop-punk inaugurated by Green Day with “Dookie”, 1994. Okay, let's also blame them for opening the doors to all those fake rebels populating the charts worldwide. Check under Lavigne. Sum 41. Blink 182. Good Charlotte. From here the great schism: if you ask a metalhead what they think of Green Day, you're lucky if out of five words they get six “F**k off” (How polite I am) and, paradoxically, you hear excited teens mentioning the same in the same breath as Simple Plan (Now I’m getting angry); basically people who have no idea who Joe Strummer is and would associate Bowie with Malgioglio. To sum up, how do you approach this latest work of theirs? Keep in mind it is commercial music (a term that has billions of facets), the Ramones won’t be coming back, so it's better to stop with the cult of the past, listening to a certain type of artist does not qualify you, because music is not conformity. Finally, listen carefully.

“American Idiot” comes out in 2004, two years after the useless “Shenanigans” and a full ten years from the band’s first success, the already mentioned “Dookie”. Everyone knows the album is politically aligned against the Bush government. What a surprise. In fact, even the All Saints got political with that satire video against Berlusconi, don't ask me the title. But the album is not one-dimensional.

It is a cry against subservience to the mass media and a warning to shake off passivity (first track “American Idiot”). It's the story of a young man, St Jimmy, (who gives his name to the sixth track) who perceives unease and the consequent disorientation leading to alienation (“Give me Novocaine”), who wants to escape the suffocating suburbs (“Jesus of Suburbia”). The political component is there - how to deny it?- and is felt in the screams of derision and rancor of “Holiday”, which could be understood as being against misgovernment in general. The intimate side is not missing emerging in “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, a moment when the three concede more to melody. The other songs help to recreate a dark atmosphere, where hatred, selfishness (“Letterbomb”), the sense of imminent abandonment and the frantic search for refuge (“Homecoming”) prevail.

Ultimately a punk-rock opera of great impact, intense, at times controversial. That it represents a masterpiece to me might not interest many. But at least acknowledge that it is one of the best music albums of recent years.