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Nagging Hooks
The return of Green Day, Alan Jackson and The Libertines
Green Day
American Idiot (Reprise)
In a world rapidly running out of Ramones, we need to appreciate any three-chord savants we’ve got. They don’t come much savanter than Green Day, who have been making good records so dependably for so long that they’re easy to take for granted.
American Idiot is something of a thematic leap, a quasi-concept album with two songs that run over nine minutes. But musically, it’s a retrenchment. After 2002’s Warning! moved in gentler midtempo directions, American Idiot comes out heavy on the hey-ho-let’s-go. Even those nine-minute epics are suites of mini-songs, with a fresh nagging hook about every 30 seconds.
And as always, it’s the hooks that carry the day. American Idiot doesn’t ring the bell quite as often as Warning!, but effortless tunes abound. So do angstsy clichÉs, which sometimes make singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong’s chronicle of “Jesus of Suburbia” sound like one long Bon Jovi ballad (“I walk this empty street on the boulevard of broken dreams”). Still, his heart’s in the right place. In the title track, aimed at dickhead bullies in general and one president in particular, Armstrong decides, “Maybe I am the faggot America/I’m not a part of a redneck agenda.” Johnny Ramone, rest his Republican soul, might not like the words. But he’d love the guitars.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
Alan Jackson
What I Do (Arista)
Alan Jackson was a latecomer among the New Traditionalists of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, but of all of them he’s been the most rigorously orthodox. Even when his hooks are big enough to cross over to the top 40 chart, they’re still rooted in traditional mainstream country music.
As always, he ventures off, briefly, in other directions, as on What I Do. There are hints of bluegrass, Southern gospel, crossover pop and countrypolitan, as well as a novelty song (“The Talking Song Repair Blues”) that, despite its title, owes more to Charlie Daniels than Bob Dylan. But the bulk of the album is made up of well-crafted, straightforward mid-tempo country pop that’s, on balance, considerably more country than pop.
The highlights are “USA Today” and “If French Fries Were Fat Free,” both funny songs about being sad (“If French fries were fat free and you still loved me/What a wonderful world this would be”), and “Strong Enough” (“Mexico, you don’t make tequila/Strong enough to get her off my mind”).
Unfortunately, there’s not much real emotional weight to offset the winking self-awareness of those songs. On the ballads Jackson is sincere but sentimental. He rarely brings the same attention to detail to his truly sad songs that he does to the funny sad songs or the good-timing numbers, and that’s still missing here.
—Matthew Everett
The Libertines
The Libertines (Rough Trade Records)
Darlings of the ever-salacious UK rock press, The Libertines never-ending soap opera is perhaps more engrossing than their music. Then again, the myth making associated with The ‘Libs’ short and turbulent history is indeed fodder for the tabloids.
So here’s The Libertines’ story in a nutshell: A band of stylish sleazebags informed by The Clash and The Strokes forms in a London squat; band immediately finds accolades and indie credibility; a great single is recorded—followed by a greater debut album produced by none other than The Clash’s Mick Jones; the world is immediately conquered, and rock history is made. Well, not exactly.
Yes, The Libertines are probably the most popular band in England these days, and their records are great. But Pete Dougherty, one of the band’s two songwriter/singers had acquired a rather unfortunate crack/heroin addiction and couldn’t be bothered to make the band’s initial American foray.
From there, the whirlwind of dirt dishing ensued in Great Britain. Once a week there were new reports of Pete’s, ahem, “health.” One week he was “brothers” with compatriot Carl Barat, the next he was out of the band forever. Eventually, Pete Dougherty was arrested for robbing guitars out of Barat’s home in a pathetic attempt to finance a crack-fueled suicide quest.
Well, isn’t that the stuff of legend? Everybody loves the image of the drug-addled, suicidal rock poet.
So, for the Libertines’ follow-up album, the band addresses the love/hate dichotomy between Pete Dougherty and Carl Barat.
And, these maniacs have delivered. The Libertines rocks with fury, and the dramatic subtext of each and every song only adds weight to the force of an infinitely desirable rock‘n’roll unit.
The tunes on The Libertines follow the same Clash meets Strokes paradigm, but this time out there’s a bit more emphasis on the early UK punk sound. Songs like “Can’t Stand Me Now” and “What Became of the Likely Lads?” examine the band’s struggles from within. The result is painful and gripping, like watching surgery on television. Yes, it hurts to endure, but the pain is delicious.
—John Sewell
October 7, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 41
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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