Surprise kids, Green Day is at it again with another politically charged, but substantially more hopeful, 8th album called “21st Century Breakdown.” Personally, I feel that this CD is upbeat, but still carries a deep thread about two characters, Christian and Gloria, as they live in the present day.
If you can’t find a full copy of this somewhere, go shoot yourself. I suggest going to mtv.com and digging into The Leak where you can find a full version of the album ready for streaming goodness, or, be lazy and click here (http://www.mtv.com/music/the_leak/green_day/21st_century_breakdown/).
A cursory search also brings up the lyrics, which I found handy because Billie Joe, the lead singer, sort of screeches and warbles his way through the songs, sometimes almost unintelligibly.
The album is broken into three acts, with the first track “Song of the Century” not being a real part of any of the acts.
Back again are the interesting fade-in/fade-outs of the songs with radio static and other such effects, and a lot of crashes between the songs happen. I’m still sorting through the mess of the album, but I’d like to focus on “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” a catchy little number about not fucking around.
Hmm… I suppose that now would be a great time to mention that this is a “PG-13” blog? Yeah. It is.
Anyway, here’s another lazy link for you for the Lyrics (http://www.metrolyrics.com/horseshoes-and-handgrenades-lyrics-green-day.html)
So the song is a pretty standard punk ballad, but the whole song had me kind of headbanging around the entire time. It’s rather toe tapping. It follows the songs “Restless Heart Syndrome” and “Static Age” lyrics, which both scream to the forced conformity of both modern medication and media, respectively.
“Horseshoes” sounds like a break from those ideas. Trying to be free from the deathly cold of the new media age and its side effects as we try to control our broken attention spans as the world keeps spinning faster and we become more and more infused with information as technology spreads.
I’ll admit a problem about thinking deeply into “Horseshoes” is that it’s rather short. It is what it is, and is happy with that. Not to mention that it’s rather infectious. It’s definitely going to be bopping around my iPod for quite some time now.
RSS Feed