Six Degrees of Green Day’s American Idiot
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five other albums we've deemed related in some way. In some cases these connections are obvious, in others they are tenuous. But, most important to you, all of the records are highly, highly recommended.
The Album
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Despite John Mellencamp's best efforts, we never got our great Iraq War protest record. Despite what you may have heard, Green Day's ambitious, politically-charged rock opera American Idiot ain't it; though it does have vivid, heart-bombing lyrics featuring flags draped over coffins and the subliminal mindfuck America. Instead, American Idiot's combo of vague anti-Bush rhetoric and occasionally directionless teenage anger masterfully captures suburban malaise, and merely uses wartime as the ugly soundtrack.... It's a What's Going On for people who play too much PS2. A labyrinthine concept album that's nearly impossible to parse on lyrics alone, American Idiot follows our hapless hero, the Jesus Of Suburbia, as he journeys from his rednecky, war-mongering, homophobic suburb of Jingletown to the big city. He discovers and undiscovers love, discovers and undiscovers drugs and the American Dream flickers in the background like a bad TV reception. Meanwhile, the band who used to sing about being too bored to jerk off turns post-millennial tension into high-concept musical, full of West Side Story histrionics, Grease shoop-shoops, bold major keys, acoustic ballads and fucking tympanis, not to mention a pair of sprawling nine-minute song cycles that frontman Billie Joe Armstrong wanted to be the Bohemian Rhapsody of the future. They got everything kind of backwards tapping Jesus Christ Superstar for its rock riffs and mining the Who for their sense of drama, and created a modern masterpiece. Released 17 years into their career, it was Green Day's first No. 1 album ever, raising their profile from rock stars to rock legends. Subsequently, they're maybe the only modern rock band to feel important, which in itself is kind of a throwback to the days when bands like the Who made bloated concept operas. With the band donning a teenager's guyliner for effect, this album is essentially the rallying cry for Generation Y, a group who hasn't yet decided what, if anything, to rally around. This is our United States of Whatever.
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The Forbearer
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American Idiot's massive harmonies, soaring hooks and sweeping narrative find their forbear in a charismatic Jesus figure who oversaw much more than suburbia. Armstrong's crush on this 1970 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical is no joke he even has the original albums double-angel logo tattooed on his right arm. When putting American Idiot together, the band listened to tons of musicals for inspiration The Rocky Horror Picture Show, ... href="http://www.emusic.com/album/Soundtrack-Cast-Album-West-Side-Story-original-Broadway-Cast-Recording-MP3-Download/11634966.html">West Side Story, Hair, Grease but Jesus Christ Superstar sings loudest, the one with the brightest choruses, most tender acoustic breakdowns and the chaotic swirl of activity around its troubled hero. This recording of the 20th Anniversary London Cast Recording features more jazz-tinged arrangements and features original London Jesus, Paul Nicholas (of the 1977 disco hit "Heaven on the 7th Floor"!), whose voice has grown perfectly Meat Loaf-y with age.
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The Political Punk Heroes
The Punk Opera Predecessors
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Green Day wasn't the first punk band to tell a story via sprawling concept album. Eating up four sides of vinyl, Hsker D's landmark Zen Arcade dropped in 1984, giving a 70-minute widescreen vision to hardcore punk, a noise best appreciated in 30-second tantrums. Zen Arcade borrowed the convoluted story arcs of classic rock concept albums with none of their bloat and excess, wrapping everything in buzzsaw guitars, prismatic feedback, vein-bursting shouts... and machine gun drums pretty much all the grimy punko noise possible to belie Bob Mould's bubblegum hooks and Grant Hart's fist-pump anthems. Armstrong cites Hsker D as one of his biggest influences, and you can hear it in every sky-gazing chorus. As for the narrative of Arcade: A kid leaves his stifling suburban existence for the big city, finds love, encounters drugs, examines himself and returns home. Sound familiar?
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The Influential Snot-Rocketeers
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Sure, American Idiot's soapboxing is reminiscent of London Calling, but that album seems culled from another era entirely card cheats, fugitives, the Spanish Civil War, direct action with the trigger of your gun? Screeching Weasel understand Green Day's home turf. Their short-and-sloppy 1987 debut tackles all of American Idiot's major complaints in embryonic, less articulate flip-offs: I can't stand your right wing phonies/ I don't like you congress cronies, etc. It's all... there: The president sucks ("Say No To Authority"); TV news is depressing ("BPD"), work is for idiots ("Work"), and there's nothing to do in this town but go to the 7-Eleven ("7-11"). It's political punk at its most reactionary and hilarious, but truly captures the boredom and hopelessness that drives suburban angst. As Green Day's influence and Lookout! labelmates, Screeching Weasel were of the last mini-generation of pop-drunk snot-rocketeers before "Longview" couch-surfed its way onto MTV.
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The Kindred Spirit
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pabella3on August 7, 2012 at 3:33 pm said: there are no degrees to American Idiot?
