We proles can’t possibly fathom the kind of pressure that Green Day must have felt when they were putting the finishing touches on 21st Century Breakdown, their first album since the multi-platinum – and game-changing – American Idiot. Perhaps that is why they played around with side projects like the Foxboro Hot Tubs (which was a damn good record, by the way), because it enabled them to get their yeah yeahs out without having to worry about commercial expectations.
Ah, but they could only put the world on hold for so long, and at last, they give us “Know Your Enemy,” the debut single from Breakdown. Does it raise the stakes of American Idiot? No, but that appears to be the point. There was no sense in even trying, so instead, they deliver something more akin to their “unplugged” album Warning, which is one of my favorites of theirs. Big choruses, hand clap-ready snare drums, and a no-nonsense performance video to promote it. It’s as if they’re asking us to forget that American Idiot ever happened, and while that makes sense, it’s just not gonna happen. Still, this definitely has me excited to hear the rest of the album. Only a couple more weeks…
