American Idiot
American Idiot is the seventh studio album by American punk rock band Green Day. It was released on September 21, 2004 by Reprise Records. After the band had produced the last album Warning alone, they relied on the support of their longtime producer Rob Cavallo for American Idiot.
American Idiot reached high chart positions internationally. In addition, it was awarded a Grammy for "Best Rock Album" in the same year.
Title List
- American Idiot (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 2:56
- Jesus of Suburbia (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 9:08
- Jesus of Suburbia (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- City of the Damned (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- I Don't Care (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- Dearly Beloved (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- Tales of Another Broken Home (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- Holiday (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 3:53
- Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 4:21
- Are We the Waiting (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 2:44
- St. Jimmy (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 2:56
- Give Me Novacaine (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 3:26
- She's a Rebel (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 2:01
- Extraordinary Girl (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 3:35
- Letterbomb (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 4:07
- Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 4:46
- Homecoming (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tré Cool) - 9:18
- The Death of St. Jimmy (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- East 12th St. (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- Nobody Likes You (Green Day/Mike Dirnt)
- Rock and Roll Girlfriend (Green Day/Tré Cool)
- We're Coming Home Again (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong)
- Whatsername (Green Day/Billie Joe Armstrong) - 4:12
Concept
American Idiot is a rock opera in the style of Quadrophenia by The Who. The band themselves describe the album as a "punk rock opera". It tells the story of Jimmy, a young US-American who lives with his mother and stepfather in a suburb called "Jingletown" and calls himself "Jesus of Suburbia". He passes the time watching TV and doing drugs and feels trapped in the lower middle-class "redneck" environment. At the end of the second song, Jesus of Suburbia, he decides to escape the lack of perspective and moves to the city. In the song Holiday, he sharply criticizes the Bush administration's "War on Terror" policy and its treatment of critics.
Once in the city, Jesus of Suburbia lives alone on the streets. He develops an alter ego called "St. Jimmy" in a kind of dissociative identity disorder. St. Jimmy is a rebellious punk - accordingly, after two quieter songs, the album becomes much harder and more aggressive. He drives Jesus of Suburbia to make his life more bearable with a painkiller ("Novacaine" is a trade name of the local anesthetic procaine).
Jesus of Suburbia meets a girl on the street whose face he can remember, but whose name he can't (or won't, if you pay attention to the booklet), which is why he calls her Whatsername. In the song She's a Rebel you can find the reference to the album cover: "And she's holding on my heart like a hand grenade".
Jesus of Suburbia and Whatsername fall in love, but the relationship is short-lived. In Letterbomb she writes him a farewell letter in which she mocks him ("Nobody likes you, everyone left you...", "Nobody likes you, everyone left you...") and reproaches him for not being the Jesus of Suburbia he thinks he is, but just another representative of the "Idiot America" he himself so criticizes.
Jesus of Suburbia is living on the streets for himself again. In Death of St. Jimmy, the first part of the song Homecoming, St. Jimmy commits suicide - Jesus of Suburbia detaches himself from his alter ego. He sinks into daydreams, remembers the taunts of Whatsername ("Nobody likes you ...") and decides to return home.
In the album's final song, Whatsername, he wonders what happened to his old love and finally comes to the decision to forget her.
