Apologies in advance for anyone who gets pissed by this posting, as I know there's a lot of Green Day hate floating around here....not stirring the pot or anything, just...well, I fuckin' LOVE me some Green Day~
Ah, well, maybe it's just because I'm Gay For Green Day in a HUGE way, but I love this album. I love every song off of it in its own way. The only problem I have with any of it is that there is a lot of artificial song extention; example, Static Age. The chorus repeats something like 5 or 6 times on the outro. The last time I heard a song repeat the chorus that many times was Fall Out Boy's remix of Sugar, We're Going Down. My BIGGEST pet peeve in music by far is shit that repeats too much.
But on a lighter note....even Know Your Enemy turned me off at first. I heard it and thought, "Oh, shit, this is gonna be Green Day's Afterwords, this is gonna be their "we're officially shitty pop now" album. But then I got the album, forced myself to listen to it with an open mind, and I realized, it's actually pretty damn good. If you don't go in with any expectations of what it's "supposed" to be, and just try to enjoy it for what it actually IS (which is a damn fine pop album), then I don't think it's too hard to see why this album is at least better than most contemporary pop albums, if not pretty damn good in its own right. Know Your Enemy comes across as too long and repetitive when you listen to it by itself....but if you listen to it as the second song on 21CBD, it suddenly just...I dunno, "fits." I can't not like it now, somehow.
A lot of my friends don't care for it because of the reasons mentioned here, such that it's not really punk rock, or it's too epic, but to me that's always been the charm of Green Day. When I want something more hardcore, I turn to like Bad Religion; when I want some catchy pop/punk/rock, I go to Green Day, and they've never disappointed me in that respect. This album is no different 
Also, I'd rather Green Day try to do something different and maybe fail (which I don't think they did here, but given that many seem to think just that), than to just rehash the same tired hardcore or punk sounds that have been floating around the "punk" scene in the past 5-10 years or so. That gives their albums this little bit of soul that most "ambitious" albums lack, like, at least I know they're trying to be original. Ya know?
P.S. I love to turn off all the lights and sit alone in my room, playing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne with the sound turned all the way down, with this album blaring instead. It just fits the atmosphere....so well....
P.P.S.
On a side note, I know Jason White isn't an official member of the band, but I think he should get some recognition because he seems to do more work on guitar than Billie Joe. Jason handles most of the solos at concerts and starts many of the songs himself.
From what I can tell, Jason White seems to be Green Day's version of Brian Baker, and Billie Joe is like their Brett Gurewitz. And by that of course I mean, Billie Joe writes and records on the albums, whereas Jason White plays the extra stuff live so Billie can play frontman a little more.
Last edited by Static_Martyr; 05-23-2009 at 01:18 PM.
"I'm sorry
For all the things that I never did
For all the places I never was
For all the people I never stopped
But there was nothing I could do..."
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Originally Posted by jacknife737
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