"American Idiot:" A Critique

I got Green Day's American Idiot for my dad for his birthday, since he had been agitating for it for a while. I listened to it this evening, since it isn't the greatest idea to critique something without actually having heard it. Needless to say, I didn't find much in it that was worthy of causing me to change my opinion.

I think this discussion should start with a mention of Godwin's Law. Godwin's Law states, basically, that as any discussion increases in length, the probability that Hitler or nazis will be mentioned increases, and, more important to my argument, the one who mentions Hitler or nazis automatically loses the discussion. I bring this up because the third song on the album, "Holiday," goes like this:

"Zieg Heil (1st, duh) to the president gasman
. . .
Pulzerive the Eiffel Towers (2nd, invasion of France)
. . .
. . .
Kill all the fags that don't agree (3rd, either the obvious connection, the holocaust, or the "Night of The Long Knives," where Hitler ordered his newly constituted Schutzstaffel to kill all the members of his old guard, the Sturmabteilungen, including the mildly homosexual leader of the group, Roehm. But I think that goes too far, don't you?

So there. Three nazi references in one song. I think they lose the arguement, eh?

Now to other, deeper arguments. My main problem is that this is a would-you-like-some-cheese-with-that-whine CD: It bitches a lot but doesn't offer any solutions. This is the mark of, well, idiots. Anybody can complain, but making an entire CD out of it without any solutions shows a total lack of initiative. Furthermore, they bitch about extremely easy topics, such as, I dunno, Bush. I remember an article I read where the only reason Billie Joe Armstrong could give for why he hated Bush was that he was "evil." Furthermore, he attacks the ad hominem arguments that the Bush administration uses to mobilize the Fox News crowd ("everybody do the propaganda"), yet in another article advocates using such arguments as "our President is killing people and he's an asshole" (AP #192, p. 122) to motivate kids to vote. I mean, hell, Jello Biafra makes a better argument than he does. And while we're beating up on political punk rock, lets mention that both of the aforementioned individuals makes statements that seem to condone lowering taxes, yet advocate socialist policies such as welfare that require huge resources. Without getting into a discussion about abolishing the military, which is ludicrous at this stage in world history, there is no way you can lower taxes and fund social programs. One or the other.

I know this has been all over the place, so let me wrap up by saying that in addition to being a dookie (ha! pun!) as far as the lyrics are concerned, it's just as bad musically. Let's just say you can tell that they went overnight from being a punk band to trying to write a "rock opera." Yet, they win a Grammy. Chalk one up for being commerical rock while convincing everyone you're not.

I'll put comments on so I can destroy any Green Day fans who want a go. :)