Boys of Green Day grow up

From lip-biting masturbation and adolescent drug use, to a critical look at sociological and political issues, Green Day's lyrics have obviously evolved over the past decade, along with its style, sound, attitude and personality. The result is American Idiot, the band's newest and lengthiest attempt to date that proves the band's ability to stay contemporary and relevant with its ever- changing generation. \nUnlike other bands from the post-punk early '90s, Green Day has grown with its audience while attracting new listeners instead of alienating old ones. It proved this by slightly deviating from its neo-punk rock roots with Nimrod and straying from them completely with 2000's Warning. The Bay City trio has received a lot of criticism over the past few years with insinuations of selling out, but the real talent of the band lies with its ability to change and its fearlessness in growing as musicians. Where bands like Blink-182 consistently cater to the same pre-teen audience, Green Day has persistently offered its longtime fans something different to expect each time a new album comes out. Dookie was released over a decade ago in February 1994, and no band is worth following if it could not progress in that great a span of time.\nAmerican Idiot is as much a reflection of the band's history and where it is headed as it is a reflection of American society and its current direction. The album begins with the band's first single "American Idiot," an amalgamation of Green Day's traditional sound. The song sets the precedent for the rest of the album with its mature lyrics and point of view. The song does a great job of reassuring fans that this is still the same trio but also introduces audiences to the band's newest incarnate shown immediately in the album's second track, "Jesus of Suburbia," a five-part nine-minute song that shares the epic qualities reminiscent of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell or The Who's Tommy. \nThe songs retain the recurring themes found in all of its albums of mild insecurities and the feelings of isolation with a sense of adult introspection prevalent in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." As one of the album's most chilling tracks, Billie Joe Armstrong eerily sings: "My shadow's the only one that walks beside me … Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, till then I walk alone." \nEach of the album's other songs is noteworthy, especially "Give Me Novacaine," "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and "Are We Waiting." \nThe weakest song on the album is "Holiday," a political statement critiquing the Bush administration as well as the band's home state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the lyrics "The Representative of California has the floor/ Zieg Heil to the President Gasman" and "Pulverize the Eiffel Towers who criticize your government," the song comes off as a forced protest and seems redundant in a time where current political leaders are easy targets.\nAmerican Idiot is an amazing album and is by and large Green Day's most musically-impressive album yet. Longtime fans of Green Day will not be disappointed, and even those unfamiliar with the band's past releases can still obtain a great appreciation for the album by listening to it. It is refreshing and comforting to know that even though it took Green Day four years to produce a new album, the waiting will be much rewarded with yet another completely solid album.