Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 18/05/09
Label: Reprise

"21st Century Breakdown" throws up the rather depressing question of what's worse: the fact that this will sell zillions of copies or the return of - gulp! - the dreaded rock opera? Yet whichever answer you might plump for, there's no escaping the notion that there's no greater zealot than a convert.

In the wake of the planet-shagging success of "American Idiot", Green Day have awoken from the haze of marijuana smoke, dick jokes and fart noises to now address the weightier ishoos of the day. And while its predecessor was an undoubtedly sincere and brave reinvention based on the proven notion that the policies of George W. Bush and his administration were driving us all to hell in a hand cart, "21st Century Breakdown" is the sound of an ego gone supernova as it assumes Spokesman For A Generation status.

Hectoring and ham-fisted, this album is, according to singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, "…a snapshot of the era in which we live as we question and try to make sense of the selfish manipulation going on around us, whether it be the government, religion, media or frankly any form of authority." Uh…yeah, right. Loosely viewed through the eyes of protagonists Christian and Gloria, the album chugs along for 70 dragging minutes on one mawkish sentiment after another.

Pompously divided into three acts - laughingly entitled "Heroes & Cons", "Charlatans & Saints" and "Horseshoes & Handgrenades" - "21st Century Breakdown" contains all the bite of a boxer who's had all his teeth punched out and his gums smashed to jelly for good measure. And for all its posturing on the state of the new century, the album remains firmly and resolutely rooted in the last. Like Oasis left unchecked, Green Day are now sounding like an oldies radio station.

With nary a thought of what's good, bad or ugly, Green Day don't so much wear their influences on their sleeves as open a haberdashery and drape their showroom dummies in them. So it is that Fleetwood Mac ("Viva Gloria"), early '80s AOR(!) ("21st Century Breakdown") and late period John Lennon ("21 Guns") are hauled out as if punk had never happened. Except, of course, in Green Day's world it did, as shot throughout are the predictable sonic dynamics of The Clash and, yes, Stiff Little Fingers.

Polished to a blinding sheen by producer Butch Vig and a supporting crew that reads like "The Lord Of The Rings"' end credits, Green Day have become the boring old farts that punk railed against back when God was a boy. Bloated, culturally inconsequential and decidedly average, the net result is a band getting far too high on an over-inflated sense of self-importance to the deafening chimes of cash registers the world over.

    by Julian Marszalek