Punk rockers Green Day (from left TRÉ COOL, BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG and MIKE DIRNT) are back with a new album, 21st Century Breakdown. It’s laden with social and political commentary like their previous hit album, American Idiot. Here are 10 things you didn’t know about the new CD.
1 This is their eighth studio album.
2 Finishing it took three years, the longest they’ve worked on an album.
3 They hired Garbage drummer Butch Vig to produce. He’d previously worked his magic on classic rock albums such as Nirvana’s Nevermind and The Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream.
4 The album follows the life of a couple named Christian and Gloria “as they deal with the mess our 43rd president left behind”, the band says.
5 Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong describes it as “a snapshot of the era in which we live as we question and try to make sense of the selfish manipulation going on around us”.
6 They were influenced by Queen, Bruce Springsteen and The Clash when making the album.
7 Renowned street artist Sixten created the cover of the album from a photograph of a couple kissing at a party in Sweden.
8 After finishing 21st Century Breakdown Armstrong suffered from depression because he thought the songs weren’t ready. “It’s kind of like having post-partum depression.”
9 The music video for the first single, Know Your Enemy, was shot in downtown Los Angeles and shows the band performing at night on a field surrounded by barbed-wire fencing.
10 The video was directed by Matthew Cullen, who steered the production of the video for Weezer’s Pork and Beans.
