American Idiot
American Idiot is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Green Day, released on September 21, 2004, by Reprise Records. The album was produced by Rob Cavallo in collaboration with the group. Recording sessions for American Idiot took place at Studio 880 in Oakland and Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood, both in California, between 2003 and 2004. A concept album, dubbed a "punk rock opera" by the band members, American Idiot follows the story of Jesus of Suburbia, a lower-middle-class American adolescent anti-hero. The album expresses the disillusionment and dissent of a generation that came of age in a period shaped by tumultuous events such as 9/11 and the Iraq War. In order to accomplish this, the band used unconventional techniques for themselves, including transitions between connected songs and some long, chaptered, creative compositions presenting the album themes.
Following the disappointing sales of their previous album Warning, the band took a break and then began what they had planned to be their next album, Cigarettes and Valentines. However, recording was cut short when the master tapes were stolen; following this, the band made the decision to start their next album from scratch. The result was a more societally critical, politically charged record which returned to the band's punk rock sound following the more folk and power pop-inspired Warning, with additional influences that were not explored on their older albums. Additionally, the band underwent an "image change", wearing red-and-black uniforms onstage, to add more theatrical presence to the album during performances and press events.
The album marked a career comeback for Green Day, charting in 27 countries. It reached number one on the Billboard 200, a first for the group. It has sold over 23 million copies worldwide, making it the second best-selling album for the band and one of the best-selling albums of the decade and all time. It is also the best selling rock album of the 21st century in the United Kingdom. It was later certified 6× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2013. The album spawned five successful singles: the title track, "Holiday", "Wake Me Up When September Ends", "Jesus of Suburbia", and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year-winner "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".
American Idiot was a critical and commercial success upon release, and has since been hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time. It was nominated for Album of the Year and won the award for Best Rock Album at the 2005 Grammy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Album at the Europe Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards, winning the former. Its success inspired a Broadway musical, a documentary, and an unmade feature film adaptation. Rolling Stone placed it at 225 on their 2012 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and it was 248 on the 2020 update of the list.
Background
Green Day was one of the most popular rock acts of the 1990s. However, their 2000 album Warning was a commercial disappointment despite largely positive reviews. In early 2002, they embarked on the Pop Disaster Tour, headlining with Blink-182. The tour created momentum for the band, who were earning a reputation as "elder statesmen" of the pop punk scene, which consisted of bands like Good Charlotte, Sum 41, and New Found Glory.Things had come to a point regarding unresolved personal issues between the three band members. The band was argumentative and miserable, according to bassist Mike Dirnt, and needed to "shift directions". In addition, the band released a greatest hits album, International Superhits!, which they felt was "an invitation to midlife crisis". Lead singer and guitarist, Billie Joe Armstrong, called Dirnt and asked him, "Do you wanna do anymore?" He felt insecure, having become "fascinated and horrified" by his reckless lifestyle, and his marriage was in jeopardy. Dirnt and Tré Cool viewed Armstrong as controlling, while Armstrong himself feared to show his bandmates new songs. Beginning in January 2003, the group had weekly personal discussions, which resulted in a revitalized feeling among the musicians. They settled on more musical input from Cool and Dirnt, with "more respect and less criticism".
Green Day had spent much of 2002 recording new material at Studio 880 in Oakland, California for an album titled Cigarettes and Valentines, creating "polka songs, filthy versions of Christmas tunes, salsa numbers" for the project, hoping to establish something new within their music. After completing 20 songs, the demo master tapes were stolen that November. In 2016, Armstrong and Dirnt said that they eventually recovered the material and were using it for ideas.
After the theft, the band consulted longtime producer Rob Cavallo. Cavallo told them to ask themselves if the missing tracks represented their best work. Armstrong said that they "couldn't honestly look at ourselves and say, 'That was the best thing we've ever done.' So we decided to move on and do something completely new." They agreed and spent the next three months writing new material.
Recording and production
The members of Green Day individually crafted their own ambitious 30-second songs. Armstrong recalled, "It started getting more serious as we tried to outdo one another. We kept connecting these little half-minute bits until we had something." This musical suite became "Homecoming", and the band wrote another suite, "Jesus of Suburbia". It changed the development of the album, and the band began viewing songs as more than their format—as chapters, movements, or potentially a feature film or novel. Soon afterward, Armstrong penned the title track, which explicitly addresses sociopolitical issues. The group then decided that they would steer the development of the album toward what they dubbed a "punk rock opera".Prior to recording, Green Day rented rehearsal space in Oakland, once again at Studio 880. Armstrong invited Cavallo to attend the sessions and help guide their writing processes. Cavallo encouraged the idea of a concept album, recalling a conversation the two had a decade prior, in which Armstrong expressed his desire for their career to have a "Beatles-like arc to their creativity". During the sessions at Studio 880, Green Day spent their days writing material and would stay up late, drinking and discussing music. The band set up a pirate radio station from which it would broadcast jam sessions, along with occasional prank calls. The band demoed the album sufficiently so that it would be completely written and sequenced before they went to record.
Hoping to clear his head and develop new ideas for songs, Armstrong traveled to New York City alone for a few weeks, renting a small loft in the East Village of Manhattan. He spent much of this time taking long walks and participating in jam sessions in the basement of Hi-Fi, a bar in Manhattan. He began socializing with the songwriters Ryan Adams and Jesse Malin. Many songs from the album were written based on his time in Manhattan, including "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Are We the Waiting". While there, he also formulated much of the album's storyline, about people "going away and getting the hell out, while at the same time fighting their own inner demons."
With demos completed, Green Day relocated to Los Angeles. They first recorded at Ocean Way Recording, then moved to Capitol Studios to complete the album. Cool brought multiple drum kits, including over 75 snares. Drum tracks were recorded on two-inch tape to produce a compressed sound and were transferred to Pro Tools to be digitally mixed with the other instruments. All drum tracks were produced at Ocean Way Studio B, picked for its high ceiling and acoustic tiling, which produced better sound. The songs were recorded in order as they appear on the track listing, a first for Green Day. Each song was recorded in its entirety before proceeding to the next. They reversed the order in which they recorded guitars and bass, as they heard that was how the Beatles recorded songs. Armstrong said that at points he expressed fear at the amount of work before him, likening it to climbing a mountain.
The band took a relaxed approach to recording. For five months, they stayed at a Hollywood hotel during the recording sessions, where they would often play loud music late at night, prompting complaints. The band admitted to partying during the L.A. sessions; Armstrong had to schedule vocal recording sessions around his frequent hangovers. Armstrong described the environment: "For the first time, we separated from our pasts, from how we were supposed to behave as Green Day. For the first time, we fully accepted the fact that we're rock stars." American Idiot took 10 months to complete, at a cost of $650,000. By the end of the process, Armstrong felt "delirious" regarding the album: "I feel like I'm on the cusp of something with this. I really feel like we're really peaking right now."
Composition
Music
Speaking on the album's musical content, Armstrong remarked, "For us, American Idiot is about taking those classic rock and roll elements, kicking out the rules, putting more ambition in, and making it current." Part of recording the album was attempting to expand their familiar punk rock sound by experimenting with different styles such as new wave, Latin, and polka music. The band listened to various rock operas, including the Who's Tommy and David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Armstrong was particularly inspired by the Who's Quadrophenia, finding more in common with its "power chord mod-pop aesthetic" than other concept records, such as The Wall by Pink Floyd. In addition, they listened to the cast recordings of Broadway musicals West Side Story, The Rocky Horror Show, Grease, and Jesus Christ Superstar, and they let contemporary music influence them, including the rappers Eminem and Kanye West, as well as the rock band Linkin Park. Armstrong considered rock music a "conservative" business with regard to the rigidity in which a band must release a single, create a music video, or head out on tour. He felt groups like the hip hop duo OutKast were "kicking rock's ass, because there's so much ambition."The band used more loud guitar sounds for the record. Armstrong said "We were like, 'Let's just go balls-out on the guitar sound—plug in the Les Pauls and Marshalls and let it rip'". Armstrong added tracks of acoustic guitar-playing throughout the record to augment his electric guitar rhythms and Cool's drumming.
For most of the record, Dirnt used an Ampeg SVT bass amplifier, recording with his signature Fender Precision Bass. For the album, he and Cavallo strived for a "solid, big, thunderous" bass sound as opposed to one centered on countermelodies. Dirnt ran his bass guitar through an Evil Twin direct box, a staple of his recording methods since Dookie. Cool also employs unorthodox instruments for punk music—timpani, glockenspiel, and hammer bells—which he received out of a promotional deal with Ludwig. These instruments are especially evident on "Homecoming" and on "Wake Me Up When September Ends", the latter of which includes an African bead gourd that was welded to a remote hi-hat pedal for future live performances. "Extraordinary Girl", originally titled "Radio Baghdad", features tablas in the intro performed by Cool. For "Whatsername", Cool recorded drums in a room designed to record guitars to achieve a dry sound. With all these techniques and influences considered, critics have called the album pop-punk and alternative rock, but primarily the aforementioned punk rock.