Green Day: Ranking Their Albums From Worst To Best

10. 21st Century Breakdown

"Redundant" isn't just the name of a song from Green Day's Nimrod album, it's also an unfortunately apt definition of their 2009 output. We'd already heard a big, arena-shaking political rock opera from our go-to punk goofballs five years earlier, so it seemed a little odd for them to come back with another, even more grandiose album with even bigger ambitions. 21st Century Breakdown is the peculiar sound of a band simultaneously aiming for the sky and settling for a retread. It's clear from the lead single, "Know Your Enemy," that they were more than willing to write unofficial sequels (this one a dutiful reinterpretation of "American Idiot"). American Idiot worked, in part, because it was so unexpected. It felt fresh because we'd never heard Green Day go so big and get so worked up over politics before. But 21st Century Breakdown, despite the band working with producer Butch Vig for the first time, felt woefully familiar. It was like watching Anchorman 2 (or Dumber and Dumber To, or pretty much any sequel to a cult classic comedy from the last few years), you knew they were trying to give the fans more of what they loved before, but in doing so, the final product felt hollow. 21st Century Breakdown was simply too big for its britches. Don't get me wrong, the album still sports a couple of instant classics. "East Jesus Nowhere" is as good as anything Green Day's put out since Dookie, "Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl)" is gleefully weird, and "Restless Heart Syndrome" nails the combination of angst and operatics just right. Overall, though, it never digs its heels in the way everyone involved surely hoped it would, and the album doesn't quite stick the landing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxmjM_dPsIc