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MUSICBOX
Welcome to paradise
After 2000’s Warning, Green Day had gone into a self-imposed hiatus. The band has now broken the protracted hibernation spell as it bounces back onto the music scene with its seventh studio album: American Idiot.
A concept album with a polemical and politically petulant title track, American Idiot traces the growth of the band over their 12-year career. The disc scores well compared to some of the asinine stuff that has been hitting the shelves lately as it amalgamates punk music and biting wit. The production value offers a delightful nuance for the fans and the band emanates a potent presence on the wings of its lyrics: an act which punk acts rarely achieve. Perverted media, avarice, social perception and themes of this ilk are extensively projected throughout the gamut of the album.
Even though the title track kicks off like any mundane Good Charlotte or Blink 182 number would, it’s the politically oriented lyrical content of the song that actually makes you stand up and take note. Giving a caustic commentary on the political status quo while disparaging the “red neck agenda,” the band welcomes the audience to a “new kind of tension.” The funky, anthemic chorus of the song also sets it apart from other punk songs.”
With Boulevard of Broken Dreams, the Bay Area trio successfully try their hand at a power ballad. Bringing out the versatile vocal range of Billie Joe Armstrong, the lyrics are a shadowy reflection of a forlorn life. However, the ending note seems quite out of place and blots the poignant feel of the ballad.
The band belts out infectious hooks on Jesus of Suburbia (a monstrous nine minute track where the band comfortably shifts multiple tempos), Holiday, St Jimmy, Letterbomb and She’s a Rebel. Wake Me Up When September Ends has an acoustic flavoured intro, a departure from the otherwise distortion dominated album.
Some of the audience might feel a tinge of self-indulgent redundancy slink into the lyrical content after the first 10 tracks, but that should be viewed as reiteration rather than repetition. As American Idiot catapults Green Day to the stratosphere of fame, let’s hope that they have the panache to stay there too! —Taimur Saleem
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Speakeasy
With pop idol programmes literally overflowing from the idiot box, it’s easy to lose count of all these “crooning celebrities.” While not a product of this one dimensional phenomenon (in contrast to ‘Miss Independent’ Kelly Clarkson), Lindsay Lohan is the latest acquisition of the teen pop crowd as she joins the bevy of pop’s pretty girls with her debut disc, Speak.
Known best for her acting aplomb in candid hits like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, the attractive Lohan officially steps into music (though she sang some songs on the OSTs of Freaky Friday and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen) following the footsteps of actress-cum-singers like Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore. And while the 18-year-old attempts to woo the crowd with her pop-sensible melodies, she ends up emulating the who’s who of the American pop industry.
With the tracks First, Nobody Till You and To Know Your Name, Lindsay Lohan evidently embarks on a jaunt that culminates in an image makeover for the chick. The title track speaks of very little in terms of freshness or originality and sounds more like a Britney Spears reject. Symptoms of You is one ballad where Lohan’s vocal delivery simply fails to do justice.
On her single Rumors (probably qualifying as the best track of the disc in the face of so little competition), she sounds strangely similar to the Genie in the Bottle girl Christina Aguilera. But Lohan’s raw vocals certainly gel well with the kicking background, which actually works in downplaying some of the syrupy popish vibe the album otherwise emanates. The track revolves around the exasperating paparazzi and malicious scandals that come as part of the superstar package.
Overall, the majority of the tracks on the disc easily buckle under the very weak lyrical content category because of the clichéd source material the artist has to work with in the first place.
Speak is an album you will either love or love to hate. You will probably bob your head to its tunes if you are a teenager with acne problems or a high schooler with gossip as a pastime or an ardent follower of Yankee pop culture. Lindsay Lohan might not be the most talented popster around, but maybe if she pulls the right publicity cords, she might just be able to use her pre-existing hype to sell a decent number of records. —T.S.
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