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by: Danny West
Over the years we have been blessed with timeless albums and legendary artists, and while these are easy to spot now, mostly because we are told what is timeless and who is legendary, it is indeed a rarity to witness first hand as musicians transform into legends.
Green Day are those legends. 22 years after the group first formed and 15 years after they gave us their debut album Dookie, the band’s 8th studio album, 21st Century Breakdown was released mid-2009.
21St Century Breakdown, the bands most successful record to date, is there second rock opera, with American Idiot being their first. The album tells the tale, in three parts (“Heroes and Cons”, “Charlatans and Saints”, and “Horseshoes and Handgrenades”) of Christian and Gloria and the challenges which they and the US face during and after the presidency of George W. Bush. Green Day front man, Bill Joel Armstrong, confirmed in an interview that Christian and Gloria are actually personifications of certain aspects of his own personality, picked up on by most those who have reviewed the album and noted Armstrong’s personal life and private emotions seeping through the lyrics like they never have before.
21st Century Breakdown, which hit the number one spot in fourteen different countries, was quickly followed by the Green Day 2009 Tour, which began in Seattle, Washington on July 3rd, 2009 and will wrap up mid-December in New Zealand. While the band will remain in North America until the end of August, their global success will be emphasized as they begin travel to perform in over fifteen different countries.
The band’s success has thus far been confirmed with over 22 million albums sold in the United States along with the reception of three Grammy awards, though one would not be ill advised to wager that that particular number won’t increase after January, 2010. Additionally the group has won 24 other music awards worldwide, though, through a rather impressive career, have managed to rack up a staggering 72 nominations.
In times long past, music fans can look back and take pride that they were present during the hay day of Elvis, of the Beatles, of Michael Jackson, of the Rolling Stones, of Johnny Cash and of Frank Sinatra, we will have the pride of looking back to today when, perhaps, the entirety of the music industry was ruled by Green Day.
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