Green Day
American Idiot

What happens if Billie Joe Armstrong goes bananas and listens to "Tommy" by The Who fifty times in a row?
To understand, it's better to take a leap back about a decade. 1994, the blonde guy blows his brains out; the musical movement he was part of (and of which he was the symbol) had, in fact, erased the hard and uncompromising punk of the '80s, creating a style that blended punk urgency with the commercial immediacy of easy riffs and melancholic ballads typical of the Pacific Northwest. With Cobain's death, Grunge - which with the likes of Mudhoney, PJ, and AIC had already said all it had to say - definitively ends, but its lesson is now clear to everyone. The new punk bands, which in that period resurface like ants from the burrows they were hidden in, know very well that their music will never break through if it isn't streaked with those pop veins of immediate comprehension to which audiences all over the world are now accustomed.

It is with these premises that Green Day releases "Dookie", 8 million copies sold and tracks like "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around" that forcefully enter the psychotroped and globalized heads of endless legions of teenagers.
The years go by and our trio starts to seriously get on everyone's nerves, continuing to dish out the same old soup, which with each new release seems weaker and less convincing. And here we return to our Billie J., who starts listening to Tommy by The Who on repeat. It’s a time when he’s mightily pissed off, because in power in America there is a warmonger with an expression as intelligent as that of Minister Maurizio after a night spent on coke and hookers and who is in cahoots with half the Middle Eastern gentlemen whom he publicly declares as his bitter enemies.

This results in "American Idiot", a public denunciation of George W.'s administration set like a rock opera, heavily indebted to the original masterpiece. The title track is perhaps the piece most similar to classic Green Day, simple and easy to remember. The following "Jesus of Suburbia", with its 9-minute duration, has a more complex structure and is the most remarkable track on the album, along with the other long piece, "Homecoming" (which blatantly recalls Cousin Kevin). There's no shortage of slow tracks ("Wake Me Up When September Ends", which against your will makes you feel like that Dawson prick) and other well-crafted pieces like "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" and "Extraordinary Girl".

Of course, the commercial need is never forgotten, yet with this album the green day finally surpasses the (many) limits of its own genre, while obviously always remaining attentive to the immediacy it has always sought.
Sure, we are very far from Tommy, but their choice to change is admirable and all the works that try to awaken young souls from their stupor deserve respect. Maybe soon even Gigi D'Alessio will get pissed and make an album against the bonsai duce, and there will be no dicks for anyone: "nano, mi consenta, vadaffanculo!!"