DATE | WEEKS |
October 2, 2004 | 3 |
At the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama gave a speech that was so well-received it overshadowed everything else about the convention. Obama spoke about what he viewed as people trying to divide the United States into factions of liberals and conservatives, red states and blue states, and how the people trying to divide the country would not succeed.
I'd like to think deep down most people sympathize with the thesis of Obama's speech. But I can't help but notice in the years that have passed, during and after Obama's eventual presidency, the crux of that speech has not only been disproven, but has gotten much worse.
Ultimately in that year's election, George W. Bush won re-election against Democratic nominee John Kerry. I remember going to the post office that year to drop my ballot off with Kerry's name checked off. I was disappointed Kerry lost, but not really surprised. Bush appealed to people who didn't really follow politics, but nevertheless believed anyone who didn't support the war in Iraq was a traitor to the country.
The culture wars really revved into gear during the 2000s. And it wasn't just Iraq. Education, abortion, LGBTQ rights; these were all fair game for conservatives to paint liberals as being weak and out of touch with "American values". For the most part, Democrats didn't do a great job fighting back against this messaging around this time. That meant it was left to people on the margins to make more forceful arguments against this status quo.
Incubus alluded to the Bush administration in their song "Megalomaniac", which I previously covered. Green Day, on the other hand, weren't going for subtlety. They wanted to make it very clear that the people running the country were fucking idiots. The result was arguably the most iconic song Green Day has ever recorded.
Billie Joe Armstrong was born in 1972 in Oakland, California. His father was a jazz musician and truck driver, and he died of cancer when Armstrong was 10 years old. His mother, a waitress, raised Armstrong and his five older siblings after his father's death. Armstrong met Mike Dirnt at his mother's restaurant as a child, and the two eventually started a band. By 1989, they chose the name Green Day because they liked to get stoned on marijuana.
Armstrong played on The Lookouts' 1990 EP IV, and when that band broke up that year, the drummer for the group, Tre Cool, joined Green Day, rounding out the trio's lineup.
Green Day released their debut album 39/Smooth in 1990 on Lookout! Records. They released a second album, Kerplunk, the following year, and toured hard behind the record. By the time they returned to the Bay Area, Kerplunk had sold over 50,000 copies, which prompted a bidding war for Green Day amongst major labels.
This was a conflict for Green Day, as signing with a major label meant being ostracized as sellouts from the punk rock community they grew up with in the Bay Area. Ultimately, the band signed with Reprise Records, and were promptly banned from the legendary venue 924 Gilman in Berkeley as a result.
Green Day's major label debut, Dookie, was released in February 1994. It was a massive hit on alternative radio; three singles, "Longview", "Basket Case", and "When I Come Around", topped the Billboard Modern Rock chart. The songs all crossed over to pop radio, but because no commercial singles were released, they didn't chart on the Hot 100. "When I Come Around" was the biggest of the Dookie singles, peaking at #6 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart.
Even though I was a grade school student, I loved "When I Come Around". The video got constant airplay on MTV and VH1, and there was something in Armstrong's voice that resonated with me. Of course, it's easily the most radio-friendly of the songs from the album; I wonder what I would've thought of them had "Longview" or "Basket Case" been my first exposure to the band.
Dookie was a massive success for Green Day; it eventually became certified Diamond in the United States, meaning it's sold over 10 million copies. The next two albums for Green Day, 1995's Insomniac and 1997's Nimrod, didn't do quite as much business as Dookie, but they kept the band on constant rotation on alternative radio, as well as in the pop culture conversation. When Seinfeld aired its series finale in 1998, an episode 75 million people tuned into, NBC chose Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" to soundtrack a tribute montage for the show.
Still, the band was seeing diminishing returns from their albums. Even though 2000's Warning produced the group's first alternative #1 in five years, the album only went Gold. Two singles from the album did reach my chart in its early days. Second single "Warning" peaked at #23, as did the third single, "Waiting".
Green Day took some time off before returning to the studio in 2003. Their next album was tentatively going to be titled Cigarettes and Valentines. The band was nearly finished with the record until fate took a hand. Someone stole all the master recordings for the album. Not all hope was lost; the band had backup copies of the songs and could have re-recorded everything.
However, when the group sat down with producer Rob Cavallo after the theft occurred, Cavallo asked them if they thought the project represented their best work. Armstrong realized the it didn't, so they started from scratch. Armstrong spent some time in New York City's East Village to get inspiration for the record. All three members would create snippets of songs to try and compete against one another.
Even though the album that became American Idiot was labeled a political record, the title track is one of the few overtly political songs on the album. But the band swings for the fences with the track.
Armstrong wanted to call out what he felt was the unserious nature that cable news was covering the Iraq War, comparing it to reality television. "Don't want to be an American idiot, don't want a nation under the new media." He blasts the media for causing hysteria in the country, calling it "the subliminal mindfuck America".
The 2000s were the peak of Fox News dictating the political conversation with its hard-right slant, and its anchors gaslighting the country into thinking they were fighting against the "liberal media". Of course, they still do that to this day, but their impact feels somewhat muted today, with the likes of Alex Jones and Candace Owens, amongst others, able to go around traditional media to spew odious conspiracy theories and various other levels of bullshit.
Armstrong was also inspired after hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd's 2003 song "That's How I Like It", which has a line explicitly celebrating being a redneck. He responds to this bluntly: "Well, maybe I'm the f****t, America. I'm not a part of the redneck agenda." Armstrong had been openly bisexual for a decade when "American Idiot" was released, so his use of the word "f****t" shouldn't have been so shocking. Still I seem to recall some pearl-clutching at the use of that word. I looked up the original thread for the song on Pulse Music Board, and at least one person was confused by the word's presence.
Armstrong uses some good wordplay in the song's chorus. "Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation." It's hard not to listen to the song and think he's saying "alienation", as in, being disconnected from the community. Art works best when it speaks to the "other" in society. You could even make the case that the punk community at 924 Gilman made Green Day an "other" by ostracizing them when they signed with a major label, rather than celebrate one of their own making it to the big time.
The video for the song is pretty memorable in its simplicity. Directed by veteran music video director Samuel Bayer, Green Day perform the song in a warehouse in front of a giant green American flag. The video sets the aesthetic for the album cycle, with Armstrong in an iconic look of a black shirt and red tie. Eventually the flag releases a deluge of green liquid that soaks the band members. In Green Day's world, these colors most definitely run.
"American Idiot" resonated at the time with audiences on alternative radio. It topped the Modern Rock chart for six weeks, and became the band's first song to chart on the Hot 100, where it reached #61. It's been a staple on alternative radio in the 20 years that have passed, but it's fair to say that nostalgia hasn't been the only reason.
After Donald Trump was elected president, and prior to his first visit to the United Kingdom as president, a campaign began to get "American Idiot" to #1 on the UK singles charts. It wasn't quite successful, but the song still re-entered the chart at #25. (It peaked at #3 during its initial run. Tony Blair didn't get off easy over the Iraq War either.)
Green Day have never been shy about performing the song in the years that have passed, especially during and after Trump's presidency. When the band performed on ABC for New Year's Eve 2023, they played "American Idiot", only they changed "redneck agenda" to "MAGA agenda". Basically proving Green Day's point, right-wing commentators and Trump supporters lost their shit over this. Honestly, I have no words to elaborate on this. It defies basic logic.
"American Idiot" struck a nerve with music fans, and revitalized Green Day's career. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart, as well as topping charts in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland. It was even nominated for Album of the Year at the 2005 Grammys, but it lost out to Genius Loves Company by Ray Charles. Now I love Ray Charles, but I'm convinced the only reason that album won was because Charles died the previous year. The Grammy voters never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Nevertheless, American Idiot is easily one of my favorite albums of the 21st century. We're nowhere near done with the album cycle. We will see Green Day back in this column soon.
EXTRAS
"Weird Al" Yankovic parodied "American Idiot" on his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood. His version was called "Canadian Idiot" and he describes it as "a love letter to Canada" from the point of view of an ignorant American. Weird Al is the furthest thing from an American idiot. Here's the song:
(Weird Al's biggest hit on my chart, 2006's "White and Nerdy", peaked at #8.)
American Idiot was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2009, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical, losing out to Memphis. I kinda wish I was into theater at the time, because I probably would've liked to have seen that adaptation when it ran on Broadway. Here's Billie Joe Armstrong introducing the cast performing "American Idiot" at the 2010 Tony Awards.
Here's 5 Seconds of Summer performing "American Idiot" during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in 2015:
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