Dave Seaman wrote on 10/15/2004, 9:41 AM:
 
 > I am surprised to say that I am loving the new Green Day  "American 
Idiot"
> release!  I' m not typically on the pop  punk side of the power pop
> fence - I
> usally tend to  go for Beatleque or XTCish stuff. But I also like hard 
and
>  simple power pop, as long as the pop is strong and catchy and/or  has
> something to say.  American Idiot is both --this CD is  really, really,
> good!
 
I've been a Green Day fan from day one. In fact, if you haven't  picked
up their first couple of CD's before they went to a major label  (that'd
be "Kerplunk" and "1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours") you  should
definitely check those out.
 
This new CD took a few listens to grow on me, but it will definitely  be
in my top CD's of the year.  I can't stop listening to it.
 
The singles are probably the best catchiest songs on the CD  (according
to the CD sticker, those will be "American Idiot", "Holiday",  "Boulevard
Of Broken Dreams" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends").  I  also love
"Novcaine" and both the suites of songs, especially track 2, "Jesus  Of
Suburbia" .. I think that's my favorite track on the CD and one of  my
favorite songs in a long time.
 
In fact, it surprised me to hear KROQ in L.A. playing it, given  that
it's around 9+ minutes in length, but I've heard it 3 times now.
 
I'm having a little bit of a problem following the storyline of  the
"punk rock opera" though. There seem to be 3 main characters :   The
Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy and Whatsername.   And two of  those might
actually be the same person, or one may be imaginary. Oh  well.  They're
talking about possibly making it into a film.
 
Arthur
_http://www.thepickle.net/_ (http://www.thepickle.net/)