Those lucky Billboard people got to hear six tracks from the new Green Day album, “21st Century Breakdown”. Green Day’s been one of my favorite bands since “Dookie”, and unlike a lot of folks, I didn’t abandon them in the decade between that seminal album and “American Idiot”. I’m actually one of the few folks out there who can say they liked “Warning”. Conversely, I’ve gotta say that it took a long time for “Idiot” to finally blow me away.While everyone was busy proclaiming it the best album of 2004, I was fairly unimpressed, but I’ve got to say that the album has held up extremely well over the years and with 4 1/2 years hindsight, I’ll say it’s almost as good as people said it was at the time.
Anyway, it looks like “Breakdown” will be similar to “Idiot” in that it’s sort of a “rock opera” with a storyline and three “acts”. This album will also be politically charged, although not to the extent that “Idiot” was.
“21st Century Breakdown” comes out in early May, which means that we should be hearing a single shortly. I can’t wait!! In the meantime, let’s kick it old school with the “When I Come Around” video, which I remember getting played on MTV every 10 minutes-back when they actually played videos.
Australia has always had sort of a romantic appeal to me (and I’d love to be there right now, considering it’s summer), and I have Men at Work to thank for it. The delightfully goofy band won my six year old heart, first with “Who Can it Be Now” and then with “Down Under”. How can you resist the story of a man who meets a woman who made him breakfast when you’re a little kid? All it would have taken for a kidnapper to have lured me away back then was the promise of pancakes.