Editor’s note: Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about items in the Parsons Music Library‘s collection. All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by Music Library student worker, Duncan (class of 2018) and features American rock band Green Day’s 2004 album American Idiot. Thanks, Duncan!
In discussions of individuals’ favorite music, it is often noted how certain songs, albums, and artists have a significant amount of “staying power” with those individuals. These works have managed, at numerous stages of people’s lives, to maintain their resonance. For me, the album that has had this degree of prolonged impact is Green Day’s 2004 album, American Idiot.
I was raised on “oldies” music. Throughout my childhood, starting around the age of three or four, I would go to bed each night with the music of The Beatles, The Monkees, or Simon and Garfunkel (among others) quietly playing on the boom box which rested on my bedside table. I distinctly remember my parents burying their heads in their hands in embarrassment as I sang along to The Monkees’ Greatest Hits on a crowded flight. All of this is to say that, for as long as I can remember, I had been primed for an appreciation for rock & roll.
Then, when I was in fourth grade, I came across the song “Holiday” on YouTube, and I was immediately enamored. I am the son of a (progressive, it should be noted) North Carolina pastor, and had not yet been exposed to the bluntness, ruggedness, and vulgarity of punk music. While I certainly did not understand the political significance of the song at the time (the song is a criticism of the invasion of Iraq), I enjoyed the edginess of the track; it seemed charged with angst and sarcasm. One YouTube spiral later, I was begging my parents for the album for months. Eventually, my parents were worn down by my persistence, and bought me the album.
While I initially appreciated the album for its catchiness, it has established new levels of significance for me in the decade since I first listened. The album is what the band describes as a “punk rock opera,” following a character named the Jesus of Suburbia as he faces the trials of an unhealthy home life, disenfranchisement, drug abuse, and lost love. The album is particularly effective in that it personifies the resentment of American society at the time of its conception. If anything, the issues addressed in the album have gained greater significance as our political landscape has grown increasingly polarized.
While a large part of my appreciation of the album is rooted in in nostalgia, I think the album holds up both thematically and musically. I still find myself returning to it and experiencing new levels of appreciation. The album has been incredibly significant for me, and I hope others experience it similarly.