21st Century Breakdown
| Green Day
21st Century Breakdown
21st Century Breakdown is the eighth studio album by American punk rock band Green Day, released on May 15, 2009 through Reprise Records. It is the band's second rock opera, following American Idiot(2004), and their first album to be produced by Butch Vig. Green Day commenced work on the record in January 2006 and forty-five songs were written by vocalist/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong by October 2007, but the band members did not enter studio work until January 2008. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
If it’s a continual surprise that Green Day are the ones to pick up the torch and run with it, that’s part of what makes 21st Century Breakdown so fresh and vital — Green Day sound like they’re as shocked as anyone else.
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Pitchfork
Like predecessor American Idiot, it is another hour-plus slab of jumped-up alt-rock as political/musical theater.
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Consequence of Sound
It doesn’t have the surprises and left field advantage that saved American Idiot, but it’s one hell of an album that should satisfy even the worst of the pessimists.
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BBC
You may not get any deep insights, but you are getting some great tunes.
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AV Music Club
It reinforces what American Idiot first revealed: Green Day should never be underestimated.
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The Guardian
If there is a central theme, it is this: in a society centred on conflict, how can we discern if there's anything actually worth fighting for?
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The Guardian
If it seems a little less bold, a little less surprising than its predecessor, you still wouldn't bet against it repeating its success.
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IGN
It's not that it's bad ... Just be cautious going into the experience, and remember -- Nimrod and Dookie are probably collecting dust on your shelf, when you should probably be rocking out to those instead.
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NME
We’re left with a sprawling, obvious, über-commercial, stoopid punk-pop album that might just stop five million American idiots from voting for a war-mongering Republican baby-slaughterer when they grow up. Works for me.
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Slant Magazine
Maybe if you’ve heard one Green Day rock opera, you’ve heard them all. Anyone who owns American Idiot probably won’t need its lesser twin, and those who steered clear won’t come groveling for forgiveness.
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Music Radar
Not a recommended manuever for every band out there, but Green Day have the lofty ideals and insatiable hunger to pull off the near-impossible.
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Pop Matters
The fiery follow-up to American Idiot is both a conceptual mess and a breathtaking display of ambition, the band now trying to do everything at once at the expense of a unifying theme.
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Punk News
Green Day are out to prove that stadium rock records can be made by punk rock bands, and if that's not a lofty ambition, I don't know what is.
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The Quietus
If you'd been plagued by visions of some Warner exec waving a wad of dollar bills in their direction, shouting: “Look, look, just re-hash American Idiot and all this can be yours!” thankfully, for the most part, you can rest reassured that Green Day have ignored this temptation.
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Clash Magazine
The Cali punks fail to match their 'American Idiot'...
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All Music
The band manages to have 21st Century Breakdown work on a grand scale without losing either their punk or pop roots, which makes the album not only a sequel to American Idiot, but its equal.
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Los Angeles Times
The punk trio takes a dazzling musical journey in their latest concept album.
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Something Awful
Really, the only option Green Day has after the latest spectacular misstep is to call it a career.
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American Songwriter
Green Day takes on symbols of authority both old (politics, religion) and new (the media, medications), and if they offer no ready solutions, they do make the case that it’s worth raging to preserve one’s humanity.
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Geeks of Doom
It’s a good — if unspectacular — return by a band that continues to evolve its sound and still has plenty to say.
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Creative Loafing
Listening to any one, two, even three or four songs from 21st Century Breakdown is an absolute treat. But trying to swallow the thing whole tends to trigger my gag reflex.
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Punk Rock Theory
I could go on and on about this album but simply put, this disc has it all… anger, melody, a message.
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The Boston Globe
Amped up once more - Green Day tells stories amid sound and fury on 'Breakdown'
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Mockingbird
What strikes me most clearly about this album is how freely the lyrics associate Christianity with the corruption of the powers-that-be.
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Independent
The desire to retain that youthful spirit of rebellion is well-meant but hardly helped by Billie Joe Armstrong's dismal prognosis, nor by the prog-rock-style three-act sequencing, which sits badly with punk-pop principles.
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Music OMH
In its execution and enterprise, 21st Century Breakdown trumps its forerunners.
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Jim DeRogatis
At nine songs instead of eighteen, "21st Century Breakdown" might have been even better than "American Idiot." Of course, that's why we have program buttons on our CD players and a delete function on the iPod.
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3:AM Magazine
From my vantage point, these advantaged millionaires have come to the end of their sonic road and nothing they ever say or do again could be of any interest to me whatsoever.
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Gigwise
Green Day have made an album that is only brilliant in parts – generally when they break out of their comfort zone of 4 minute pop songs. It’s a bit too long also – but there’s plenty of stadium filling potential in there and when Green Day hit the heights they sound as fresh as they did on ‘American Idiot’.
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Washington Post
It is an "American Idiot" sorta-sequel that's every bit as potent as the original, even if the story at the heart of the song cycle doesn't always track.
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SF Gate
It's split into three acts and, like all good concept albums, has an impossible-to-follow plot. That's easy enough to ignore because the music is amazingly radio-friendly, with each tune matching the band's standard over-the-counter rebellion.
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The Telegraph
Green Day raise the bar with a 17-track Quadrophenia-style rock opera.
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The Review Bin
Sure, Green Day will no longer be a part of a generation of slackers and punks because they’re in their late 30’s and have kids of their own, and have become their own victims–but they can still teach. Happy face emoticon
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News Review
More ambitious, perhaps, but definitely not as potent.
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Murlough 23
Green Day aims to recapture the success of American Idiot and falls only slightly short, but comes up with a musically varied and thematically intriguing disc in the process.
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RTE
Although its easy to see that Green Day are constantly maturing, musically and lyrically, their fast catchy punk formula, perfected in their earlier albums such as 'Dookie' (1994), is still as relevant and memorable here as it first was 15 years ago.
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Entertainment Weekly
The tireless ? mid-thirtysomething trio will undoubtedly keep launching their scrappy sonic bottle rockets until the last guitar pick falls from their trembling, liver-spotted fists.
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Female First
In all, the 18 song album is something that any Green day fan will be happy with.
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Whatever
So as good as 21CB is, at the end of the day Green Day’s going to be remembered for two albums: Dookie, which is the album that got them their career, and American Idiot, which got them their career back.
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Danger Dog
If you couple this with the horrifying despondency of Armstrong's worldview, then you might as well overdose on Vicodin now. Otherwise, like Green Day, you've become the American idiot without hope in this world.
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Soul Surmise
Answers are not so forthcoming and though hope is sprinkled across these eighteen songs you wonder where it comes from; some transcendent place that they don’t give many clues to.
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Antiquiet
The songs are beautiful.
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Bullz-Eye
It has a fantastic album’s worth of songs floating within its track listing as well; they just didn’t know when to quit.
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Giant Bomb
If you never really liked any of Green Days' material you most likely wont like this album. But for those of us who can appreciate all forms of music, sit back, close your eyes and enjoy.
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Blunt Magazine
Stunning new album
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Reflections of Darkness
It is a really good album with a good mix of songs that has great potential to be even better live.
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Mibba
Lying on my bed, stereo blasting, I know I've made an investment. This album will go down in history.
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Rock Amino
One of my favourite things about this album is the consistency of it all, all the songs have these amazing shifts and storylines which all connect which is amazing, it shows the effort and thoughtfulness of what this album was made to be about, rather than just chucking together some songs.
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Mix Grill
If someone asked me to describe in one word the new album of Green Day, released on Friday, I would probably say the word: "mature ".
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Music Banter
Get it for a Green Day collection, but don't expect the wonders that should have come out of a five year wait.
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Gunslinger Gazette
It is multi-layered and deviates far from the territory the band was comfortable roaming prior to American Idiot. Every single song on the newest album sounds born from the Rock Anthem animal.
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Stuff
It is an articulate, progressive, antagonistic, well-paced and occasionally thrilling record that comes close to being a complete work of art.
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30 Days Out
I never thought I’d see a day when punk rock could be considered “classic rock” but this excellent album from Green Day is as classic as they come.
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The Austin Chronicle
Neither the storyline nor Butch Vig's production completely succeeds in pulling the whole thing together, overcompensating with size over substance. While the third and final act charges toward resolution with supreme fury, 21st Century Breakdown ultimately gets caught between panic and fledging promise.
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Jam Base
Let’s cut to the chase: This is a good album.
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Hidden Jams
Given the circumstances, Green Day was on an impossible mission to top themselves, and they did that with a second ambitious rock opera, this time divided into three acts.
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East BayTimes
Green Day’s ’21st Century Breakdown’ is a work of art
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