Review Summary: An album that experiments, but really it just ends up getting old.
Green Day- American Idiot
Go easy on me. this is my first review, I got a little to frustrated. sorry. And i improved over my original.
I'm have never been a fan of this album. I always love when bands experiment, but this one was very frustrating for me. I didn't not think it turned out very well. When Green Day's Dookie came out, many punks accused them of selling out, which is kind of true. But why they went for an even more mainstream, which was very confusing.
There are actually I couple of things i actually enjoyed about the album, the biggest being the experimentation. Though a few tracks may have put me to sleep (just kidding.), I still enjoyed the politically driven "American Idiot" and the energetic " St.Jimmy".
I also like how the band experimented but it didn't turn out very good, as I will discuss later.
But that save the album from the way I think about it.
My main problem is that no songs really are memorable. I know this album is different, but come on guys! But put some cool bass lines and drum parts in them. I also wasn't having any fun with the album. It took itself to seriously, sometimes and that wasn't great. Billy has said that this is a rock opera, but I got no elements of "story" from it. There were a few songs that were pretty awful such as "Boulvard Of Broken Dreams" which tried to be something it wasn't and "We are the waiting" really irritated me. A few songs sounded to similar, but hey a lot of Green Day songs sound the same. So in general i did not think this was that memorable, I can't say much about it other than its just forgettable. It's just doesn't feel as well as other albums. There's nothing worth really writing home about. I could go track-by-track but i've learned not to do that.The instrumentation and studio polish killed the album for me. I normally expect better bass lines and a more raw sound, but the sound effects made it sound, well not punky at all. Green day started out as a fun alternative to the depressing sound of artist during their earlier days. But this album is not fun, it's sappy pop rock. And really it doesn't mean it's bad, since I don't mind experimentation, but the overpolish sound and basic instrumentation (compared to the high energy of their earlier, and some later works.) makes this album not something I can get into. With all this negativity, I still think there are a few good cuts on this album. Like "Holiday" were the polish works!It makes it sound really powerful. Overall this album feels like one or two tracks, everything just blends into an alright and sub-passable mess of tired concepts. I wanted more, some varied tracks. For a band to go from the experimental Nimrod and Warning to some doughy and messy album, just doesn't do it for me. They really should have carried through with "Cigarettes and Valentines", and drop the story aspect and just tried to make some good individual songs, not lumping everything together, and making it sound very bland.
In conclusion I do not recommend this album, unless you're just curious, because a lot of people enjoy this, just not me. The album is just average because as a whole it's not very memorable. But hey, some people may like a few tracks, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. But thats just me, and I know alot of people LOVE this album, but I wasn't a big fan and it was weak and a bit bland compared to the earlier and even some later (Turns out I ended up loving uno) works. If this album touches you, thats fine and I respect that, I just didn't enjoy this.
