As someone who spends most of his waking hours with a toddler, the times when I’m walking or driving alone are far and few between. When the opportunities do arise, there’s only one thing to do: play kick-ass music just a little bit louder than is probably prudent. And despite the fact that I have plenty of “good new music”:http://www.beck.com/guero.php waiting for just such moments, when it comes time to queue something up on the iPod, I find myself turning again and again to _American Idiot_. I’ve never been a particular Greenday fan and couldn’t tell you thing one about the band, but man, that album rocks. As I “noted in passing”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/2005/04/adfoo.html a few weeks ago, the lyrics hold no significance whatsoever, but now I wish I had never read them,, because when all you hear is the odd words and fragments that you pick up when you’re mostly just headbanging, it sure _seems_ significant. I mean, can you think of a better expression for post-9/11 angst than the line “Wake me up when September ends?” And yet the song with that title is about something else entirely.
But there’s not a dud song in the bunch, and they’re all meant for playing loud, and the second and penultimate tracks are these glorious nine-minute song sequences with transcendant transitions. Heck, just now I got off the Metro one stop early just so I could be sure to hear it to the end while walking home. Gotta love it.
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April 30, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Mark
I’ve never been a Green Day fan, but I have to admit that they’re catchy. Plus, I’m a sucker for “glorious nine-minute song sequences with transcendant transitions” (as you put it) so maybe I’ll check out AI.
However, the CD player in my car is currently broken, so all I’ve got is radio and apparently Green Day is the only music they play these days. For Christ’s sake, if I hear “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” one more freakin time, I’m going to go nuts! It gets played 2 times an hour on every damn station. I’ve actually heard it come on, rushed to the controls to change the station, only to find it on the next station. Grrr.
May 1, 2005 at 6:55 am
nate
_That’s_ the single they’re playing on the radio? Oh well. I can see how that one might grate after too much play. Way to go, Clear Channel . . .
May 2, 2005 at 10:47 am
Bryan
I think that Wake Me When September Ends is about the singer dealing with the death of his father. Though, it’s hard to not make the correlation to 9/11. And, of course, Holiday and American Idiot have some political references. It’s a solid album…Jesus of Suburbia is one of the best rock songs to be penned in recent memory. And, if they did a better job with the lyrics and the story arc, it could have been considered among the best rock albums of all time. Really!