Does the world really need a "punk rock opera"?

I was talking to my cousin, Chris, the other day and the topic of Green Day’s latest album came up. He was gearing up to buy it and was giddy with anticipation. In and of itself, this isn’t much of an anecdote. What made the conversation noteworthy, however, is that my cousin is a dyed-in-the-wool R&B man.

Chris has every Stylistics album ever produced…on vinyl, no less. He can quote you each and every Prince song chapter and verse. He counts seeing Smokey Robinson at the Circle Star as the most important event in his life. In short, Chris isn’t the kind of guy you normally associate with, what record executives term, "the youth alternative rock demographic".

But Green Day has long transcended the “punk” label. Their punchy power chords, loping bass lines and potent mass appeal is what launched them out of America’s basements and right into its sticky-sweet shopping malls back in 1994.

There’s a sizeable group of unattractive, uncoordinated white kids (that’s the drawn-out definition of “punks”) who’ve never forgiven Green Day for their success—as if selling millions of albums somehow meant that Green Day sold their souls to Wal-Mart and betrayed the holy Punk Rock Code of Ethics. I’ve always found this a bit unfair. It’s not as if Green Day ever released a crappy Christmas album, made a disco hit or starred in a movie about a haunted theme park. Besides, the Sex Pistols, Ramones and the Clash all sold millions of albums and somehow managed to stay pure….but I digress.

By now, you may have guessed that I’m a Green Day fan and you’d be right. I’ve been a fan since I first saw them at Gilman, back when George Bush Sr. was still a newbie president and yes, you’ll find their albums in my record collection. That doesn’t mean, on the other hand, that I had high expectations for American Idiot. When I heard that Green Day was releasing a massive “punk rock opera” album—a friggin’ theme album, no less, I was wondering if the band members were, in fact, trying to compensate for being too young to have ever released a disco hit.

Let me be absolutely clear on this one: the world needs a punk rock opera like it needs a good plague or a polyester, leisure suit renaissance or an ABBA reunion.

What makes punk rock great—from Iggy Pop on down to Rancid—is that it has always been a beautifully streamlined musical style. No overwrought seven-minute guitar solos. No silly lead singers with ludicrous bulges in their skin-tight, satin pants or full-time hairdressers on retainer. Rock and Roll was anything but rock n’ roll by the mid-70s. It was a bloated, corpulent genre just chock full of pretentious “rock operas”. Punk Rock, I will be so bold to suggest, saved Rock and Roll from itself by reminding the world that, yes, you can make 3-minutes songs full of swagger, anger and sex.

But damn, I digress yet again. Soooo….getting back to the subject of Green Day’s new CD. I wasn’t really enthusiastic about a Green Day album that featured five-part, nine-minute songs. Still, you can’t dislike something you’ve never tried. Keeping this in mind, I coughed up the cash for the album and gave it a go.

photo courtesy of greenday.net

How can I put this, without sounding like a fawning idiot? American Idiot is an amazing album. It is far and away Green Day’s best work to date and on a par with seminal punk recordings such as Social Distortion’s Mommy’s Little Monster, the Circle Jerk’s Golden Shower of Hits or Minor Threat’s Out of Step.

Somehow, and I still can’t figure out how they did it, Green Day has woven a mess of small, disjointed songs into a huge, cohesive album that never loses focus or runs out of steam. Give Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy and Homecoming a spin and you’ll see what I mean. The album isn’t completely, high-speed, teen monkey-on-meth material either. Novocaine, Wake Me Up When September Ends and Whatshername provide a few mellow moments that balance what could have easily been a top-heavy, anthem-laden boat.

Is American Idiot a theme album? Yes. Are there scores of mini-musical references to everyone from Meat Loaf to Bryan Adams? Yup. Is it the best album of the year? Yeah, definitely. In fact, this is one of the most consistent albums I’ve come across in years—a rare case where the best songs (and there are many of them here) will never see airtime on MTV’s Total Request Live. In short, I wholeheartedly recommend American Idiot. If nothing else, it’ll help cleanse all the Avril Lavigne and Good Charlotte from your colon, and for under 20 bucks, that’s a hell of a deal.