By the way, you can already find quite a bit of praise for the album here.. You sure seem to care about the forum user's opinions an awful lot for someone who doesn't care about the forum user's opinions. You know, all of your whining hasn't discouraged me at all from listening to the record, hudson. Actually, I think I'm going to get put it on right now.
*checks great album*
I'll at least give you some credit for not putting this damn thread in the "indie" section.
I played in a death-metal band. People either loved us or hated us, or they thought we were OK
Posts: 381 | Location: Michigan City, IN | Registered: 14 December 2007
I would take the grey road here and say American Idiot is average. There's nothing that blows me away there, but it's not exactly a pile of garbage. That's a pretty hyperbolic statement.
Oh, and if it was for middle schoolers, I'm surprised hudson isn't a bigger fan.
----- I don't dig the Stripes, but I'll go for Har Mar.
Posts: 5104 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 19 June 2005
_____________ "If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, we both still only have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, we each now have two ideas."
I stand by my previous statement that it's neither good nor bad, but I'm not sure why American Idiot seemingly gets the most attention of Green Day's releases besides Dookie. I thought American Idiot's predecessor, Warning, was cooler, catchier and a lot less beaten to death by top 40 radio.
----- I don't dig the Stripes, but I'll go for Har Mar.
Posts: 5104 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 19 June 2005
Arguments over punk cred (or indie, avant-garde, etc. cred) are amusing in the same way arguments about cock size are (not meant as an attack on anyone).
There's nothing subversive about Green Day, or even the Sex Pistols for that matter.
Apparently, anti-establishment posturing and recycled iconography go a long way...Malcolm McLaren borrowed heavily from the Situationists (who although pretty pseudo-revolutionary themselves, actually managed to influence history as an inspiration for the May'68 general strike in France. As far as I know, Green Day has inspired a lot of angsty adolescents to wear black shirts with red ties whilst they agitate their parents for absurdly expensive tickets to a spectacle of a show in a sports arena). McLaren even went as far as reusing Situationist images and slogans in Sex Pistols promotional materials. The image and attitude of the Sex Pistols was as pre-conceived and as micromanaged from above for the sake of profit as any boyband.
American Idiot/Working Class Hero Cover-era Green Day is the sound of punk "radicalism" eating itself for the umpteenth time.
Yeah, maybe some kids are genuinely inspired to do something about the the things their music is so endlessly railing against, but more often than not, it's just a safety valve that provides a sense of identity within and complicity with the capitalist/bourgeoise "system" it's criticizing.
But, we are speaking about music, not politics. And I have to say that I find it all even less interesting on a musical level.