10 Perfect Rock Albums That No One Saw Coming

By the time that the '00s rolled around, the crown that Green Day had as the kings of pop punk was starting to slowly slip away. As tracks off of Nimrod and Warning failed to get radio play, the young fans who discovered them on records like Dookie were starting to move on, becoming more interested in newer acts like Blink-182 or Sum 41, each of whom offered the same kind of snide rock and roll that Green Day pioneered. Those were still pop punk records though, and the next phase of the band's career would be defined by the era of classic rock.

Being inspired by the backwards politics that were going on during the time of the Iraq War, American Idiot was the moment where everything changed for the band, crafting a pop punk opera centered around kids trying to find their place in a world that seems to want nothing to do with them. While this is the kind of stuff that you would normally find out of a band like the Who, Billie Joe Armstrong was more than up to the challenge, getting personal on songs like Wake Me Up When September Ends as well as stretching songs out to well beyond radio proportions like the 9 minute Jesus of Suburbia.

Whereas pop punk may have started out as this goofy genre to listen to and then promptly grow out of, American Idiot was the first signal that this was more than just disposable pop music. There may have been a certain time limit of when you could do the most damage in the world of punk rock, but there's no shame in growing up if you still have your heart in the right place.