10 Greatest Comeback Albums In Rock Music History

The problem that comes with most pop punk acts is that eventually you're going to have to grow up. It's just a fact of life that bands like Sum 41 can't play songs like Fat Lip completely straight faced when they reach their 40s. And no other band knew about this fact more than Green Day.

In the years since Dookie lit the world on fire back in the '90s, the pop punk brats had started to lose their edge, with most fans being underwhelmed by the more mature songwriting on albums like Warning and Nimrod. Once their latest record was stolen from under their noses at the studio though, Green Day were pissed and decided to hunker down and make the most ambitious record of their career.

Taking a few cues from the relentless war coverage that they were seeing every single day, American Idiot was framed as an ambitious concept album with multiple parts, following the lives of these 20 somethings trying to make something of themselves in a world that just wants to see them fail. Though Green Day had been at the party longer than most punk acts should, this was the shot in the arm that gave them a whole new lease on life. Sure, they weren't going to write something like All the Small Things, but no other punk act would be able to pull off something like Jesus of Suburbia if they tried.