Green Day – American Idiot (Warner) Released 20/09/04

When Godfathers of punk-pop Green Day announced they were to release a ‘Punk Opera’ you could hear the sharp intakes of breath from Berkeley to Bradford. Thank God then, that what we have here is a modern day classic.

Not being as much a departure from their well documented routes as first expected, ‘American Idiot’ is simply a collection of Billie Joe Armstrong’s finest work since ‘Dookie’ welded together to superb effect. The ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ suite (get me with the proper terms!) - in particular the ‘Dearly Beloved’ and ‘Tales of Another Broken Heart’ segments - is just exquisite, as are ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and the Bush-baiting ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’…in fact the whole damn thing is basically a text book example of how a classic album should be, with the rocket-fuelled outro to ‘Letterbomb’ being about the most fun you can have with a small plastic disc.

There’s not many albums released with which you can confidently say the skip button has not been touched. This is one of ‘em.