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:: 10.28.2004 ::
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
I was literally threatened into buying the new Green Day album. That being said, I would have bought it eventually. It was on my list. This just raised the urgency on it. So I got it. And I listened to it. Seven times in the first weekend. It’s good. Very rocking. Very much a departure from standard Green Day fare. It seems like it could be the rock opera, though I’m not sure it entirely qualifies for that title. I would definitely say that the album as a whole has a sound of being ‘crafted.’ It doesn’t sound like each song was written from experiences that may or may not overlap. It feels like the album came together as a whole as parts were deliberately written as parts of larger piece.
As evidence, I’ll walk you through it. Begin with the simple, anthemic title track. Catchy, single, intro credits, good hook. Song two makes the stand, illustrates the topic of discussion, a very holistic piece with depth and explanation not found in a single song. The middle tracks all follow the same kinds of themes, like sub-stories along a single plot line. The best part about the middle is the pacing. Some songs fast, others slow, like a story paces itself. But all the songs work together (again, the idea of being written at once instead of in pieces then assembled), constantly refer back to each other, and do a good job of building a united front toward the climax. Which comes in song(s) twelve as the other bookend to song two. This song is probably the greatest tribute to Dark Side..., Rocky Horror, Tommy, and other rock operas in it’s formatting. There’s a fast paced back and forth between song styles, background yelling, tympanis, driving drum lines, and further reference to the first bookend and the subsequent middle songs. It is the essence of the hero throwing every last bit of his soul into vanquishing the enemy. Then, the closer, the final song, feeling as outside the album as the first. While the title track feels like we’re seeing this life full of energy and everything is good on the surface, the album as a whole drags us through the soul of the protagonist, the final song is his eulogy, sung from the outside, about the past, just a touch of sadness and of life moving on [tear].
I might be quoting someone when I say this, but I don’t remember reading it: It sounds like that album you never knew you had but have been listening to for years. This is to Dookie what The Decline was to Punk in Drublic. It does what Warning tried to do, but was just far too whiny to accomplish. This album is Green Day facing the problem as a rational being and saying “Fuck it, no more compromise; we’re burning this place to the ground.”
[I have deliberately withheld any comment I had about the ad that fell out of the CD when I opened it that told me where I could go online to get “Six new Green Day ringtones!” As I write this non-paragraph, I can feel my heart rate increasing and the blood rising behind my eyes. Suffice to say, I am blaming the record label and not the band, because to think the band would have put that in there, well, that would erase everything I just wrote about them and throw them back to the level of Blink 182: a good body, but no brains.]
“Subliminal mind-fuck America...”
:: Freddy F. at 10:00 PM [+] ::
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