~There’s an insightful and glowing review of 21st Century Breakdown in The Guardian: “an apocalyptic protest album as complex as the era that shaped it.”

~As you know, “Know Your Enemy” is out today. It’s on iTunes, on the radio, all over. Listen here (UK) or on GDA. There’s a review here; it’s a bit lukewarm.

“Silence is the enemy/
against your urgency/
so rally up the demons of your soul”
~ “Know Your Enemy”

Is it just me, or is that idea terrifying? It’s asking you to dig out all the shadows from the back corners of your mind and not just set them loose but expand them. Give them life and let them run rampant through the burning city in your brain. Yikes.

Scary or not, I’ve really missed that kind of music over the past few years. I’m beyond excited that Green Day is back for a number of reasons, but mostly because of the way their songs crash out of your speakers like they’re trying to start a riot. Reading the other lyrics they posted reinforced that idea. There’s a powerful sense of standing on the edge of the end of the world. If real life were a movie, this would be the scene right before the massive fight to the death between the good guys and the bad ones. I can certainly see Billie Joe stomping across a stage yelling incendiary encouragement into a microphone. In those movies people always make an odd kind of peace with the gigantic fight they’re about to run into, and I think the idea of the album is to do the same thing.

We’re not engaged in a physical fight, but we are trying to battle our way out of a serious hole. Nothing says it better than the lyrics to “Restless Heart Syndrome”. It perfectly captures the idea of being picked up and stomped on by something you can’t even name. You just know it’s there and it hurts.

I wish I could say there was a happy ending. For a moment, in “Horseshoes and Handgrenades”, there almost is. Anything and everything is being torn down to make space and create something better. This is the end of the idol worship. Then there’s a stillness in “See the Light”, as if everyone has stopped madly running around and is trying to figure out what to do next. The problem is no one can tell you that. It’s easy to tear down every structure within reach, but what to replace them with? You’ve rallied and rampaged your demons, leaving an eerie silence like a fading echo in their place. The human impulse is to fill it with something.

But maybe that’s where we’re wrong. Maybe you’re supposed to just stand there for a minute. Take things in and try to remember what it was you were fighting for, really. What sunlit vision you had in your head that drove you to create a new future. We need some kind of silence. If there’s a problem with this last bunch of years it’s that people have gotten lost in their own heads. It’s all noise, noise, noise. That breathing space after the destruction, terrifying though it is, is exactly what is worth the fight in my mind. Just to have the luxury of staring at a barren landscape for once, not one littered with billboards and spray paint and five hundred smudges of chewed gum. Just being able to ask what is worth the fight is worth it, because it proves you won.

It’s not a fairy tale ending. It’s a cautiously hopeful one. At the moment it’s the best we can ask for. Hey, from up here you can really see the stars…

~GreenDay.com posted the songlist for 21st Century Breakdown. There’s an image to go with each song, plus the lyrics. It’s really nice! Take a look.

The eagerly and somewhat impatiently — at least for me — awaited 90 second clip of “Know Your Enemy” was just shown on CBS’s NCAA championship game. It included video of of all three band members performing the song, presumably from the official music video. It was mostly shots of Billie Joe singing and playing guitar (with black hair and wearing a black leather jacket for those who are keen on such details…), and there were fires going off in the background, reminiscent of the AI stage show. (GDA has the video if you missed it.) GD.com and MySpace have a different 90 second clip, audio only.

I enjoyed it more than I should, but as always with these things I’m very taken aback by the over-the-top marketing aspect. Maybe that’s an odd thing to focus on right now, when there was that lovely scream and all… It’s just nice that everyone is so jumpy and excited. I guess the hype is meant to help generate the excitement, but it would be nice if it were left up to us to spontaneously become excited, or not, without being so blatantly managed.

I think the way that mainstream culture functions we’re all pawns in its game to some extent, whether we choose to be or not. We can either turn away and refuse to consume commercial products, which is essentially the punk ethos, for which I have great respect and a lot of personal affinity — in my personal life I try to have as little as possible to do with consumer culture; I don’t even shop, except for food (that probably sounds snobby, but to me it’s a survival tactic, like keeping your head above water) — or we can accept its intrusion into our lives for the things we want to make a part of our lives. There are not many, actually not any, to be honest, other bands besides Green Day for whom I would watch a NCAA promo, or brave an arena concert, or sit in the audience of a TV show…

It’s been argued before, about the choices that Green Day themselves made: why didn’t they stick to the punk doctrine and refuse to be co-opted? I think their reasons are perfectly valid and commendable: if you want to make music and be able to go as far as possible with your own creativity, and connect to as wide an audience as is out there, then this is the game that is available. The alternative is to angrily bang your head against the wall, which many other bands have done, and I for one am glad Green Day have chosen not to do that. I’m glad that they want to share themselves with all of us, even if it means having to play the game.

Regardless of the naked commercialism inherent in putting out an album that is expected to sell many millions of copies, the way we each feel about it, personally, is ultimately its essence. Even the contact person from Warner, whose job it is to keep fan websites informed, said in an email that he was just as excited as I was, and that he’s been a fan since the 4th grade. There are corporations whose concern is with the bottom line, and surely many people in those corporations for whom that is the only concern, but then there are real human beings, who will fall in love with the album, and they (we) are the ones who will breathe life into it, and the aspect of it that is a product will become irrelevant.

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Related posts:
Watch Know Your Enemy Video
Know Your Enemy: “Making Of” Video
Political Message or Delightful Thrill?

As promised, greenday.com posted a clip of “Know Your Enemy” this morning. I have to say it made me pretty damn happy. It sounds like a classic, punchy, straight-up Green Day song. (Though the production is pretty darn big!) I didn’t — and actually still don’t but I’m going to do it anyway — want to say anything negative about the previously leaked song “21st Century Breakdown,” especially because it makes little sense to judge an album that was conceived as a whole by only one small piece of it, but to be honest I was a little worried that is sounded a bit too much like classic rock for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great song, but Springsteenish classic rock is not exactly my cup of tea. But this little tease of “Know Your Enemy” is making me smile…

I’m not very good at this anticipation stuff. I don’t like not knowing, and frankly it makes me a little cranky. Unveil the album already! As a coy striptease it’s taken five years now, and I’m about ready to go home with a cheap floozie who’s willing to throw her clothes off for a few drinks! (That is, if I was a guy and had been hanging at a strip club for the last five years waiting to see some skin… you get my metaphor, right?)

I guess I’m just a bit of a homebody, but I like things that are familiar. Having to get used to a new album is always a bit stressful. I know I’m going to love it with all my heart and drool, but eh… what if? You know? Ack!

~The 21st Century Breakdown special edition, which is three vinyl albums, and more, and is limited to 3000 copies, is now available to order. Also, greenday.com is going to reveal a little audio surprise Sunday morning and another one on Monday evening. Warner Music says: “I promise you won’t wanna miss it!”

~Spinner has a sildeshow af artwork for 21st Century Breakdown, including the cover of the single for “Know Your Enemy” and an image from the album’s special edition, which they say will be available from greenday.com starting Friday. [Via GDA]

~MTV has an interview with the director of the Know Your Enemy Green Day video, which was shot over the weekend. [Via GDA] Earlier post on the video here.

MTV just sent out a press release saying that the video for “Know Your Enemy,” the first single from Green Day’s eagerly-anticipated-with-loving-drool-hanging-off-our-chinny-chin-chins album (uh, my words, not MTV’s), will premiere on MTV to worldwide audiences on April 24, 8pmET/PT (international times will be announced locally).

This is the “first global cross-channel video premiere for MTV and VH1 networks,” says MTV. “Green Day is one of the world’s most successful bands with hard core fans from The US to Japan, and only MTV can connect them on literally hundreds of platforms.”

Video Static says the video’s director is Mathew Cullen. MTV published an announcement as well, here, with more info. It says the video is being shot this weekend!

Okay, I’m eagerly awaiting!
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Update: MTV interviews the director, Mathew Cullen, here.

~GreenDay.com sent out an email newsletter saying that May 15 is the worldwide release date for 21st Century Breakdown. They also confirmed that the single “Know Your Enemy” will be out in mid-April. Pre-order here.

~It’s official: GreenDay.com’s splash page now reads: 21st Century Breakdown, coming May 15th. News of the release date spread quickly. Here’s a few examples: New York Times, Billboard, Spin.

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