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Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong on ‘American Idiot’ Impact: ‘It Changed Everything for Me’
As Green Day's American Idiot – and its iconic title track – turns 20, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong reflects on its legacy.
Our 2004 Week continues here as we hear from an artist behind arguably the year’s biggest rock album: Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, whose punk-rock opera American Idiot sold millions and spawned four huge hit singles, led by its pointedly enduring titular protest anthem. On the album, the band infused its tested brand of pop-punk with classic-rock grandiosity, grafting an anti-war storyline of disillusionment onto the 57-minute set; in interviews ahead of its release, Green Day’s members likened American Idiot to a “punk-rock opera,” drawing a direct line from idols like The Who to their own new project. Recorded during the early days of the Iraq War and released three months before President George W. Bush’s eventual re-election, the title track and lead single took aim at news illiteracy, widespread propaganda and “a redneck agenda”; in its stark, Grammy-nominated video, the stripes wash off a giant American flag suspended behind the band.
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