Greenday -- 21st Century Breakdown

3/10

I gave Greenday's American Idiot a great review with the caveat that with enough time a monkey could type a Shakespearean play word for word. I came to that admittedly mean opinion after being enticed to buy American Idiot's followup, 21st Century Breakdown. I mistakenly credited Greenday's age and apparent growing experience, maturity, and skill as being responsible for American Idiot's excellence, and I highly anticipated 21st Century Breakdown. Turns out I was wrong. 21st Century Breakdown is awful. It was those stupid monkeys all along.
Greenday apparently thought they were pretty awesome for creating American Idiot and tried to recapture lightning in a bottle for 21st Century Breakdown. I am taking the previous expression as literally peeing in a bottle during a long roadtrip and watching sparks mysteriously shoot out. That's what happened with American Idiot. 21st Century Breakdown is 70-minutes of piss in a 10-minute bottle.
21st Century Breakdown is a concept album without a concept, expensively produced, regurgitated bare-bones rock music with insipid, simplistic, over-generalized, bloodless lyrics.  Several times throughout the album, particularly on "East Jesus Nowhere," I was reminded of Spinal Tap's "Gimme Some Money."

The difference is that "Gimme Some Money" is supposed to be funny. In fact, I hate this album so much, "Gimme Some Money" is the only music I am going to post on this review. Billy Joe Armstrong also displays how ignorant and hateful he truly is on "East Jesus Nowhere" with the line "I want to know who's allowed to breed, all the dogs who never learned to read." Well, sorry that the rest of the country can't live up to the high standard set by Berkeley, California, douchebag. I'll let you get back to your eugenics project and bad music while the rest of us run bored laps around our kennels.

2009 Reprise
1. Song of the Century 0:57
Act I: Heroes and Cons
2. 21st Century Breakdown 5:09
3. Know Your Enemy 3:11
4. ¡Viva la Gloria! 3:31
5. Before the Lobotomy 4:37
6. Christian's Inferno 3:07
7. Last Night on Earth 3:57
Act II: Charlatans and Saints
8. East Jesus Nowhere 4:35
9. Peacemaker 3:24
10. Last of the American Girls 3:51
11. Murder City 2:54
12. ¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl) 3:48
13. Restless Heart Syndrome 4:21
Act III: Horseshoes and Handgrenades
14. Horseshoes and Handgrenades 3:14
15. The Static Age 4:17
16. 21 Guns 5:21
17. American Eulogy (A. Mass Hysteria / B. Modern World) 4:26
18. See the Light 4:36