Music Review
On a 1998 re-released version of their "Anti-Manifesto," perennial punk rockers Propagandhi sang that "we stand for something more than a faded sticker on a skateboard." At the time, it was supposed to be a kick off a languid punk revival that otherwise seemed intent on squatting the '90s away on the Ramones' front lawn.
Punk rock found itself sufficiently emasculated - and in serious danger of becoming nothing more than a teenager's lament to his ex-girlfriend.
Now, it seems that the last Ramone has fallen, and Green Day may be steering the genre in a more pointed direction. Their latest effort, "American Idiot," released in mid-September responds mightily to the anti-manifesto's call.
The album itself is a punk rock opera of sorts, with its own cast of recurring characters: St. Jimmy, Jesus of Suburbia and Whatsername. This is not your typical Green Day.
While lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong's vocals retain their unmistakably (and often irritatingly) nasal quality, it seems that the veteran punk rocker has finally found something to whine about.
Whether Green Day's titular "American Idiot" may or may not be George W. Bush, the title track of the album begins with an all-out bootstrapped assault on the President and his handling of the nation's affairs.
Armstrong addresses "Idiot America" with dispatches like, "Welcome to a new kind of tension / All across the alieNation," and, "Can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind-f**k America."
With a range of sounds that includes the Screeching Weasel styled pop-punk of "City of the Damned" and the bright '60s-inspired pop of "Extraordinary Girl," "American Idiot" tells the story of a matured Green Day not unlike that of the recently revelatory Blink 182.
While the band certainly isn't all grown up, the disc is rife with pensive musings on what it's like to grow up in a post-Sept. 11 world. "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a stirring and much-needed dirge to the month that never seems to end. Armstrong bids goodbye to it and gives it its own funeral in song: "Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends."
Much of the album plays like a teenager's journal and, at times, it becomes frustrating to make sense of it all. Is that St. Jimmy's voice or the curiously named Whatsername's voice? Or is it Armstrong himself? You'll find yourself inventing possible meanings and associations after only a few listens.
For example: it's tempting to peg the character, Whatser-name, as America itself. In a possible allusion to the current war in Iraq, Armstrong sings on "She's a Rebel," "She [Whatsername] sings the revolution, the dawning of our lives / She brings this liberation that I just can't define."
When one of the characters cries: "I should have stayed home" and in response, a female voice (perhaps supposed to be the country of France) mocks, "nobody likes you, everyone left you," it makes you think about the artists' stance on America's position in the world today.
It's clear that with their new release, Green Day isn't only playing for the nation of disaffected youth but for every would-be outcast feeling left out by the current political system.
Just a few weeks ago, while guests on the "Late Show with David Letterman," Armstrong and the boys proved this to be true, when Armstrong and the band followed (and essentially overshadowed) an appearance by presidential contender John Kerry. After the Senator made his patented, long-winding attempt to win over the audience's vote in November, it was Green Day that stole the show - rousing the punk in all of us.
Sure, the anti-celebrity, can't-take-a-joke nay-sayers may wink at the opportunity to bash a new release that does all but denounce the president by name. But, sometimes it takes a trio of rock stars (one of which calls himself Tre Cool) to make audible what our politicians don't have the balls to say themselves.
