-- Green Day's latest bloated concept piece, 21st Century Breakdown, now has a release date. It's due May 15 via Reprise. Get, uh, excited.
So let me get this straight, Pitchfork...
Green Day puts out a Who-influenced double-album mix of fuck-you politics (thanks, punk rock) and teenage angst (will the real Husker Du please stand up?), which is a huge success. Depsite some of the singles being the maudlin ballads, it puts big loud rock songs back on the charts for like two years. They follow it up with a sixties-styled garage-punk record under an assumed name which rocks and is also a success. Why in the HELL would you possibly be all snarky about their upcoming album? Sure, the cover art is bad, to say the least, but c'mon jerks... why you gotta be hatin'? Is this really going to be any worse than the tripe that's clogging up the charts right now? U2's latest abortion is the only rock album in the top 5, and unless you count Nickelback and Chris Cornell* (I don't), the charts are almost devoid of any rock music. Kelly Clarkson is at number one, and that's fine. She's not evil. Not my style, but not dangerously manipulative like U2 and thier ilk. And this has nothing to do with my teenage love of their first four records. I did love them, but it took me a while to come around to American Idiot... once I finally picked it up though, I wasn't disappointed.
So chill out, Pitchfork. Just because there's a pretty good chance that this new album will be a reachout to Green Day's "bread and butter" demographic (under-17 Hot Topic Shoppers), it still gonna be better than most of the rest of what's on the radio.
[*I was on allmusic.com yesterday, and saw a banner ad for Chris Cornell's new album, with a big "Produced by Timbaland" graphic over the lower half of the album art. Does that just seem totally messed up to anyone else?]
You know, as big a fan of almost all of Green Day's past work as I am, I pretty much feel the same way about the new one. It's a combination of their current celebrity (that U2 collaboration more than anything) and that album cover. I think outside of a No Limit Records cover, I cannot think of any cover that so clearly just says to me, "this is not for you." (Wow, I just inadvertently tied your last two posts together.)
ReplyDeleteDid I hear you say Chris Cornell and Timbaland made an album? I was just thinking that there weren't enough bad ideas these days. I hate Chris Cornell.
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