Jackson Free Press

Q: What happens when U2 and Green Day get together and do a video to help fund the rebuilding of New Orleans? A: I don't know. I'm speechless.

This could have been so glib, so sanitized, so safe--but it's U2 and Green Day, so they produced a bona fide protest song and a video that indicts us all, a video that people will still be talking about in 20 years.

This particular duet surprised me, but it probably shouldn't have. Pre-1985 U2 actually sounds every bit as punkish as Green Day, and Green Day, at least from American Idiot on, sounds every bit as gutsy and sophisticated as U2. Both groups are deep, spiritual, intelligent, passionate. These are two rock bands in their prime preaching with conviction, and they're probably going to get Dixie Chicked a little bit for it, but they've created something substantial, something meaningful, here. Hats off to mainstream rock--for a change.

Previous Comments

ID

107994

Comment

Green Day is one of my fav-o-rite bands and I've always liked U2 for the most part and I don't believe there could have been a better pair of bands to do this except maybe Rage Against The Machine and Megadeth!

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-28T08:30:20-06:00

ID

107995

Comment

Green Day has pretty much gone whole hog on the Anti-American bandwagon. Don't need them.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-10-29T11:50:37-06:00

ID

107996

Comment

Actually, if you read the lyrics of "American Idiot" carefully (especially in the context of the rest of the album--it's a single-narrative concept album, much like Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), it's less about dissing America is than dissing what America is becoming. The rockers I find obnoxious are the ones who believe everything is shot to hell, but have nothing substantive to offer in response but sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T15:25:22-06:00

ID

107997

Comment

Here's the gist of the song, by the way--should be read carefully: Don't wanna be an American idiot. Don't want a nation under the new media. And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mindf--k America. Welcome to a new kind of tension. All across the alien nation. Everything isn't meant to be okay. Television dreams of tomorrow. We're not the ones who're meant to follow. Well that's enough to argue. Well maybe I'm the f-gg-- America. I'm not a part of a redneck agenda. Now everybody do the propaganda. And sing along in the age of paranoia. So what he's really criticizing is media culture and masculine jingoism. I get that. It's really a pretty sophisticated criticism that stands out even more when the later tracks come in, and you get the whole Jesus of Suburbia/St. Jimmy dichotomy (where Jesus of Suburbia is the singer's personality willing to live within this broken system, St. Jimmy is the alternate personality that responds by getting angry and wanting to separate himself, and ultimately one wins out). Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T15:29:29-06:00

ID

107998

Comment

Incidentally, there is throughout the album the idea that there is an America--identified here as "the f-gg-- America"--that Jesus of Suburbia does stand by. Not that it wouldn't have been a worthwhile album if there wasn't, but it's worth mentioning that the narrator, like the rest of us, is completely patriotic to the vision of America he wants and opposes other visions. What he is saying is actually much less anti-American than what conservative Republicans say when they speak of the destruction of the American family, or the spread of Hollywood values, or the Balkanization of America's ethnic makeup, and so and so forth, all of which cut to the heart of what this country represents. Green Day's issue is with "the redneck agenda" and "a nation under the new media." I can dig that. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T15:36:10-06:00

ID

107999

Comment

What, pray tell, is this "redneck agenda"?

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-10-29T16:04:40-06:00

ID

108000

Comment

"redneck agenda" is an obvious jab at the elusive "gay agenda" that right wingers and fanatical xtian organizations are always talking about.

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-29T16:51:45-06:00

ID

108001

Comment

Right--the macho posturing of the Bush administration. What the album basically does (and this becomes especially clear in the "the representative from California has the floor" segment from "Holiday") is take the kinds of criticisms that the neocon administration and its core supporters are making about the rest of the country, and reverse the polarity. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T17:04:46-06:00

ID

108002

Comment

Incidentally, what I find very interesting is that even though Billy Joe is het, he implicitly identifies as one of the "f-gs" in "Holiday" and as part of "f-gg-- America" in "American Idiot." What he's saying is what we already know, which is that the administration's masculine War on Terror and the masculine sanctity-of-marriage movement coalesce neatly into a desperate and, let's face it, rather pathetic affirmation of American masculinity--intended to comfort both the redneck and "soccer mom" demographics, to soothe their fears by assuring them that there is an Alpha Male administration on their side. American Idiot is, in other words, as much a feminist album as anything else. (And I know people are tired of me bringing gender into everything, but just as in the case of race, there are many instances where it really is all about gender, and someone may as well say so.) Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T17:08:03-06:00

ID

108003

Comment

...and by "redneck" here I am talking about arrogant social constructs affirming violence and masculine superiority, not class. Most of the "rednecks" I imagine Billy Joe has in mind in this instance have wealth going back generations. I've avoided the term "redneck" in recent months because I recognize that it is sometimes used as a slam against low-income whites, and I'll continue to avoid the term when I'm writing stuff myself so as to avoid the potential for confusion, but in this case the targets are clearly wealthy. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T17:11:17-06:00

ID

108004

Comment

I'm liking this less and less.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-10-29T17:22:36-06:00

ID

108005

Comment

Of course, Tom had posted three times by the time I got mine posted. :)

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-10-29T17:23:45-06:00

ID

108006

Comment

and FYI.. Billy Joe is a self-admitted bi-sexual..guess the female side won out since he's all married and daddy like now.

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-29T18:39:57-06:00

ID

108007

Comment

Wow, seriously? I had no idea. I guess I probably should have checked before I assumed, but I knew he was married, so I just assumed he was het. :o) Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-29T18:49:00-06:00