In Retrospect: "Green Day - American Idiot"
American Idiot is the seventh record by the American pop-punk band Green Day. The album saw its release on September 20/21, 2004 by Reprise Records. The album was a commercial success, with the help from singles "American Idiot", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", "American Idiot", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends".
Background/Recording
The band was already a successful band in the 90's with hit records Dookie (1994) and Insomniac (1995) , until their sixth record Warning (2000), which was a commercial flop. The pop-punk scene was starting to see new faces such as Blink-182 and Sum 41, leaving Green Day to be slightly forgotten in the genre. Tension was starting to rise in the band, leaving the trio to start working on something different than before. The band started to record new material for their upcoming album Cigarettes and Valentines, until the 20 songs that the band had recorded were stolen in November 2003. The trio decided not to re-record the song, but to start fresh from the beginning.
All the members started to make their own short beats and melodies they connected together into songs. The writing process changed in all perspectives, when the band decided to make a concept album, which had a story that connected through all the songs like a novel. Soon, the band started to have long nights in the studio making new songs with regained creativity. With the demos were completed, the band started recording the songs first at Ocean Way Recording and later in Capitol Studios for the final mix. The songs were recorded one by one as they are on the track listing, making the creation of the record even more like a novel. The album took ten months to complete with a cost of 600.000 dollars.
The Lyrics/Theme
The lyrics talk about a character named Jesus of Suburbia – an anti hero made by Armstrong. The hero lives in a middle class suburban town, which he later leaves to move to the city. Other character introduced in the story are St. Jimmy (a rebel) and Whatsername (a motherly figure) which are enemies (seen in "She's a Rebel"). The story is not completed in it's entirety, leaving the listener to figure out the story by him/herself. The story ends with Jesus of Suburbia to decide which person to follow, where he chooses Whatsername, leaving St. Jimmy to commit suicide.
The album was lyrically inspired by American political events (such as the presidency of George Bush and the war that was taking place in Iraq). The political messages are most evident on »American Idiot« and »Holiday«. Armstrong stated that the »television culture« is blind, doesn't see the real picture and are warmongers. Besides politics the lyrics also take a swing at big corporations taking small businesses.
The Album Artwork
The artwork was designed at the end of the recording, when the band requested an artwork to reflect the politically inspired message of the album. The trio recruited artist Chris Bilheimer, whom worked on their previous album artworks, to make an artwork that is »at once powerful and uniform« and inspired by Chinese communist propaganda.
The artist took a listen to the album, when he heard the line "And she's holding on my heart like a hand grenade" from the song »She's a Rebel«. He got the idea of a stretched arm holding a blood soaked heart-shaped handgrenade. Inspired by the black, white and red scheme of the artwork, the band started wearing black, white and red uniforms onstage.
In Retrospect...
This is the album that shaped my childhood when I was just a wee lad. When I was young I didn't really listen to the lyrics that much, and didn't know the album had such a rich story behind it. Though I have slightly outgrown the music by now, I have a new way to look at the album, besides it just having really good songs. With that said, the album is an absolute classic and is a really good listen, both musically and lyrically – give it a listen!