American Idiot
I have been reading over my reviews and I have just discovered something. All of my reviews are complete generic crap! Should I put it in nice big capital letters for you so you can all read it?
I MISTER MOP, THINK THAT ALL MY REVIEWS ARE GENERIC!
They are all just waffling on about how this solo sounds cool or how this scream is slightly out of tune. Well I’m going to try and end it all today. This review is just going to skip all the boring waffling crap about the band’s history and just go on to a new formula of review which I think is cool (If any of you have used this review set-up before then my apologies to you for I did not realize).
Basically everything after this paragraph (apart from the conclusion) is going to be two letters. One letter is from a serious musician in his late teens writing a thank you letter to his grandmother explaining how he really appreciates the $10 she sent him for his birthday, the other letter is going to be from an eleven year old boy writing to his grandmother explaining how he really appreciates the $10 he received for his birthday. Instead of actually taking a biased opinion of this album (like I usually have done with my other reviews), I’m going to write two well stated opinions each explaining why or why not the album is good or bad.
Dear Grandma
Thank you so much for the $10 you sent me for my birthday. I went out right away and bought the latest Green Day album ‘American Idiot’. All my friends in fifth grade have it and I’ve heard that if you listen to it then you become really cool and punk rock.
I’m glad to say that they were all true! It’s the best album I have ever owned or listened to. The opening title track has got to be the greatest modern punk song ever written. The guitar parts are really hard to play and the lyrics are really political and meaningful.
After the fast and short title track comes the song ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’, it’s the longest song I’ve ever listened to, it’s over nine minutes long!
After that is the cool punk song ‘Holiday’, starting with just a quiet guitar riff it quickly builds up to a really, really heavy chorus which is what Green Day is good at doing. The lyrics are really catchy and I don’t understand how this never got to number one on the Billboard Charts.
After that is ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’, it’s got this really original song formula when it’s all quiet and acoustic in the verses and then goes really, ultra-heavy in the choruses. I’ve never heard anyone doing this before, it’s amazing!
This really original song is followed by the more laid back and mellow song ‘Are We The Waiting’. This is another really catchy song and has this really difficult acoustic plucking part in the verses. I just can’t get my head around it.
This mellow mood is quickly annihilated by the fast and really HEAVY song ‘St. Jimmy’. After about two minutes of heaviness there is this really cool breakdown (I don’t know what a ‘breakdown’ really is but the kids at school say it).
The next four songs are all very predictable Green Day songs, so obviously they are amazing! Even though they are all of an average song length they seem to flash by so fast because I am enjoying them so much.
After the previous four fast punk songs the album slows down into ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’. When I first heard this track I really didn’t like it, it had no originality at all and was really repetitive and boring. I only started to really like it when it was released as a single then I released how amazing it was.
The next song is ‘Homecoming’ which is good but seems to go on for a tad bit too long.
The album finishes really nicely with the song ‘Whatsername’ which uses the same quiet and heavy formula that ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ uses.
Overall I really like the album, I really like how Green Day have managed to put some really fast and punkish songs on the album such as ‘American Idiot’, ‘St. Jimmy’ and ‘She’s A Rebel’ and also some really slow and beautifully crafted ballads such as ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ and ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’.
Songs like ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’ and ‘Homecoming’ are really good but they just seem to go on a bit too long, although this isn’t too much of a problem since the amazing guitar solos that Billie Joe Armstrong does make up for it. I wish more guitarists soloed like he does. That way all music would be really cool.
Thanks again grandma for getting me the money to purchase this cd.
From Jimmy Toocoolfoskool (Aged eleven and a half)
To Grandma
Cheers for the $10 you sent for my birthday. At first I was really not sure what to spend it on. I really wanted to get the classic Sonic Youth album ‘Sister’ but one of my friends was also highly recommending the Green Day album ‘American Idiot’. In the end I borrowed the Green Day album from this stupid little kid called Jimmy (my friend’s little brother). As soon as I heard it I was glad I didn’t waste my birthday money on it.
The whole album is just full of your typical generic modern pop-punk songs. The opener title track grabs your attention for a while but after two or three listens it simply fades into obscurity. All the guitar work on the album is bland at best and the vague excuses for guitar solos are just painfully rubbish.
The only song that I actually liked was a track called ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’, it was actually pretty good, nothing amazing but still a good listen. Unfortunately the idiot record company released it as a single and it quickly became a very heavily overplayed mainstream ballad.
Most of the songs on the album are like this, at first you may like them but then the heavy airplay and the mobs of stupid ten and eleven year old kids going on about how Green Day are amazing really just kill the songs.
I spent the $10 instead on a Sonic Youth album which was rather pleasing to me, I don’t have time to describe it to you now so I’ll write another letter sometime giving you a full review on it.
Thanks again,
From Brian Warner (aged 16)
Conclusion:
I have met many people who have these two view points, because American Idiot really is an album that you either love or hate. I can understand both of these opinions because a certain number of the songs on the album are very catchy and fun, but then they are also quite a few bland songs on it as well. Both ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ are good songs (apart from Boulevard’s atrocious lyrics) but they were killed by heavy overplay on the T.V. and radio.
Overall I'm kind of stuck in the middle of these two view points, even though I can understand why people would like it and why people would hate it, this really is a fairly average album. I personally enjoyed all Green Day's Dookie material but along the way they managed to lose the fun punk feel of their songs and instead became more serious which really doesn’t suit them.
This is why I give this album a well earned 2.5/5
