My. God.
You know, this was once upon a time my favourite band of all time. American Idiot was the first album I ever purchased and loved from beginning to end. And yet... here we are. Father of All... Motbarfingunicornuckers. Truly, a return to Green Day's glory days when they were but a couple of snot-nosed punk kids. Few things wrong with this:
First off, the operative word is "kids" You are not kids anymore, Green Day. You are very old men, by music standards. Pushing 50 at this rate. So slathering your album promotion with inflammatory comments toward "Swedish songwriters" and "trap beats" doesn't make you edgy. It just reinforces your age in the industry. Not that you would sound cool saying these things at any age, but the pushing-50 reality of your slowly graying haircuts really accentuates how out-of-touch this album and its promotion are.
Second, if you were looking to re-capture the punk, not-giving-a-fuck aesthetic with this album, you utterly cratered with the actual music, which is so painfully uncool it makes Weezer look twenty years younger. Only you guys were clamoring for a Gary Glitter resurgence, that's all I have to say about "Oh Yeah!", a song which means nothing and actively hurts to listen to. It feels like none of these songs actually had an idea behind them beyond "hey, wouldn't it be funny if the title was this?" How else can you explain inanities like "Fire, Ready, Aim" (wait a minute! THAT'S not the correct order!) or "Take the Money and Crawl" (wait! it's supposed to be RUN!) or "I Was a Teenage Teenager" (wait!... what?)
This album is so far beyond worth anyone's time it's actually embarrassing. There's maybe one song on here that is actually halfway to worth listening to, but there is no reason to listen to the whole thing unless you decided to publish some misguided review on the catastrophe. I guess I really felt compelled to do this one just to provide the eulogy for a deceased band, by all accounts. So let me say that for the record, once upon a time, this band was very very good. Now, they are very very bad. And no amount of PURE UNCUT ROCK can disguise that.
3/10
"Best" Tracks: "Sugar Youth" is comparatively good in that it sounds like a C-tier track off of 21st Century Breakdown. Just... just don't waste your time with this one. It is old and sad and pathetic.
