American Idiot by Green Day
Reviewed by Pastor Mike GunnBy the title of the album you can tell that Greenday’s newest release has something to say. As most artists that have matured (Or at least been around for awhile), they appeared to have saved their best for later. This year’s rock album of the year goes to a more than deserving combination of good music and challenging, intelligent lyrics. Many fans like myself were acquainted with Greenday when “Dookie” arrived on the scene in 1994, and were treated to their pop/punk hits like “Welcome to Paradise,” and “When I Come Around,” which, like the rest of the album rocked with energy, but appeared to stay on the surface level of political and cultural punch. What Dookie failed to do then, American Idiot, more than compensated for now.
It appears to be Greenday’s coming out album. It’s their statement cut, and hopefully the beginning of something new. The song “American Idiot,” only begins to touch the surface of the album’s intent and fury with the American cultural landscape. Warning, if you are Christian and don’t like to have your feathers ruffled, then go buy Toby Mac’s new album, and stay away from this socially charged time bomb. From the moment the first guitar roared on the title tract until the last note was played in “Whatsername,” you are feasting on rock’s hottest band’s opinion of American politics and current American lethargy. It is sort of their state of the union address. Much of the album centers around the second tract, “Jesus of Suburbia,” which for a Christian is a haunting medley of fire and brimstone aimed at the heart of the evangelical quagmire the church has gotten itself into. His chorus of “Jesus of suburbia is a lie,” reminds all of us who are so closely connected to that grenade that he’s on to a truth that is hard to deny. Like many bands such as “Rage Against the Machine” that have gone on before them, they speak prophetically to the ills of religion that have settled for the goods instead of the God behind the hype. We’ve created a culture of blessing that has bought into a commercialized and pat gospel that meets the needs of consumers, but does nothing to assuage the hurt of the human soul. Songs like “Give Me Novacaine,” and “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” do more to assess the human heart and define the source of Billy Joe’s pain than most moralizing or neo-psycho babble speeches that are passed off for sermons on a Sunday morning. I don’t know if everything Greenday wants us to believe is true (There is a lot of adhominem “If you don’t agree with me you’re an idiot” in the lyrics), but I do believe they represent a growing frustration with an American ethic ostensibly forged out of the Christian faith, that has left us with nothing more than a chest thumping, Consumeristic narcissism, which has begun to suck the life out of living, and left the country in a bevy of red and blue states that are divided neatly by their cultural assumptions. American Idiot might piss you off, or it might bring a sly smile to your face, but it won’t leave you without opinion. The lyrics and the passion are evident, and they are infectious, and as a Christian, they leave you frustrated with the “American Idiot,” which we gaze it in the mirror every morning. I do believe that they have connected to a growing social pulse that is often denied by believers, and will most likely be passed off as persecution, rather than being understood as a wake up call to the death of church as we know it.
Mike Gunn