A long car trip today afforded the chance to conduct a listening experiment that pitted Green Day's breakout disc, 1994's Dookie, against the new 21st Century Breakdown. The quick takeaway: 21CB is a good, remarkably solid sounding disc from a slick band, the kind of group that the Dookie-era trio likely would have crossed the street to spit on.

In 1994, I probably listened to Dookie every day for several months. It was everything I wanted at the time: soaring pop hooks driven by loud guitars, inventive bass and manic drums. Then there were Billie Joe Armstrong's lyrics. When you're young, living in a crap town with few friends, having troubles with your girl and generally wanting to be anywhere but here, there are few discs better suited than Dookie.

Fifteen years later (!), the disc is still a powerful listen. The hits are as instantly catchy as ever, and even the deeper album cuts have much to recommend them. It tails off toward the end, but the first 10 or 11 tracks are as strong as anything in the band's catalog. I vowed to put the album back into occasional rotation.

Then came 21CB. I'd listened to the disc once, distractedly, and could acknowledge that it had some good songs. Here, held captive behind the wheel, I was able to absorb the entire album in one sitting. It's good -- very good. But I couldn't help but be left a bit cold. This is such an over-produced album that it's hard to feel it's the product of the same band that made Dookie. Gone is the individuality and the blend of those elements that made that earlier album such a bracing listen. Save for Armstrong's vocals, this could be anybody. Of course, in a way, it is. It's not as if the three musicians stood across from each other in the studio banging out these 18 tracks. God knows how many layers of guitars, vocals and keyboard are at play here, but the result is a high-gloss sheen that makes Green Day sound like the very thing its members once rebelled against. 21CB is closer to something like Def Leppard's Hysteria or something from ELO than anything would expect from the snot-nosed upstarts that turned rock radio on its head by finding a way to make the music of acts like the Ramones palatable to the masses.

That's not to say that the songcraft is lacking. If anything, the songs are stronger than anything the band has yet recorded. But even when they take things down a notch, the wall of slick production saps all of the dynamics from the tracks, and the shiny presentation makes it hard to find the idiosyncrasies necessary to truly hook the ear.

Lyrically, though I know Armstrong has moved on from tales of teen angst, I was still disappointed to find that the disc lacked any of the mischievous humor that has been a band trademark. Even the over-serious American Idiot had a few smile-inducing moments. There were none to be had here.

The disc is also overlong. When "21 Guns" hit, I assumed it was the bonus track I'd received when I downloaded the disc from Amazon. It felt somewhat removed from the rest of the disc, but little did I know the band was far from done. Next came "American Eulogy," which really felt like an album closer, only to be followed by "See the Light," one of the strongest -- and most organic sounding -- tracks on the album. Finally, I was done. I can imagine picking up Dookie to hear "Welcome to Paradise" or "Basketcase" again, but I couldn't begin to even pick out a favorite song from 21CB that would lead me to put this on a year from now. I'll give it a few listens in the meantime, but it feels like something that will be filed away, not something that will stay close to the player.

Oh, and that bonus track from Amazon? That would be a live version of "Burnout," the first track on Dookie. It's a recent recording (I'm not sure the vintage), and thus slicker than the original. Still, it showed how powerful these three musicians can be even when shorn of studio trickery. If the band even had anything to do with the choice, it probably saw it as a nice nod to long-time fans. The unintended consequence, however, is a not-so-subtle reminder of just how visceral and alive this band once was, and how studio-bound and corporate it has become.

Labels: music