10 years of American Idiot

[Spike]

And only play the old hits during the tour!

"WOOOOO 99 REVOLUTIONS TOUR #UNODOSTRE4LYF!!!!!!!!! Ok it's the 19th anniversary of Dookie this song is called Burnout..."

[DookieLukie]

"WOOOOO 99 REVOLUTIONS TOUR #UNODOSTRE4LYF!!!!!!!!! Ok it's the 19th anniversary of Dookie this song is called Burnout..."

This is the best music we've ever made and we don't feel comfortable playing it. It's not safe for human ears so we dumbed it down on the record and didn't play it live.

[StuckWithDom]

Omg, I just tried to play American idiot and the cd has been scratched after I lent it to my cousin

Time to buy a new one!

[theMinority22]

American Idiot <3<3<3 Like almost every Green Day song, I have a memory connected to a lot of AI songs when I first heard the album 5 years ago when I got into Green Day after I heard Minority on the radio and my friend burned me a CD of some AI and all of Insomniac. Like 'Homecoming' which I LISTENED to right before Homecoming in 8th grade 4 years ago because I was so excited for it and then afterwards in bed at home because it was a horrible night, and to this day Tre's rock n roll part makes me smile And Jesus of Suburbia the music video I watched over and over.... St. Jimmy was literally my Jesus. I remember falling asleep to Give Me Novacaine too. Aww. Happy 10th AI

[ollhjr]

I am still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that American Idiot is ten years old!! I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock including bands like The Who, Queen, and Pink Floyd, but during the late 90's I started to get into top 40 radio. Up until 2004 my modern rock bands of choice were as follows: 3 Doors Down, Nickelback, Creed, Default, etc. When I first heard the title track back in 2004, my 13-year-old mind was blown away. At that point the only Green Day tracks I heard on the radio growing up in small-town western Wisconsin was Good Riddance & When I Come Around. So this was a stark contrast to my limited experience with them before. This song was just what I needed. It was loud, sounded big, and was brash. It reminded me a lot of the classic rock that I grew up listening to, and was amazed that a strong with this strong of a social and political commentary could be played on the radio!! Growing up in a liberal political household and starting to pay attention to the political happenings of the time, this song was perfect. It was a stark contrast to the majority political opinion that I was surrounded by in a small farming town, but it helped me gain my own identity as a teen. That it was alright to stand up for what you believe in, even if you are in the minority opinion. My experience with the rest of the album took a while to develop. I loved the other singles I heard on the radio, but never got the album. I was one of those "fans" at the time, where if you would've asked me to name a song off of that album that wasn't a single I wouldn't have been able to give you one. Although now I realize it doesn't really matter if you know a lot, but that their music makes you feel something! Actually, at the time I believe I got sick of hearing BOBD, because it was overplayed. I wish it was still played a lot.

It took me until 2009 to finally listen to the album all the way through. It was after rediscovering Green Day with the release of 21st Century Breakdown and my thorough enjoyment of that album that I thought it would be good to work my way back on the Green Day catalogue. So I worked my way back on the discography and listened to American Idiot all the way through. I fell in love with the album instantly. This was the summer right before I would go off to my freshman year in college. I was finally leaving the small podunk town filled with dead ends, and was finally going to explore the big world/city that surrounded me. So the narrative that was presented through the album was something I could relate to. All the feelings I mentioned for the title track when I first heard it in 2004, came flooding back in 2009 and still does to this day. Wake Me Up When September Ends is a track that became more personal to me than ever before back in 2012 when I lost my grandfather in September. In fact he passed away the day after Billie's dad passed away. It was a song that helped me through the long grieving process of losing him. He was the first family member who passed away that I was truly close to, and I took his loss hard. I don't know where I would be without that song and the rest of the album.

I am forever grateful for this album and this band. Both opened my eyes to the world I lived in, and made me feel like there was someone out there that understood what I was going through. Looking online over the last few days I have read a few articles that take a look back at the impact of this album. Some saw this as a timeless album, while others say that songs like Holiday and American Idiot along with other tracks are dated. I disagree with that sentiment and see it as a timeless record that will be remembered for years to come. Although it has only been ten years, and not fifty years down the road, the imagery and messages still ring true now as it did then. This album still gets me as excited as when I first heard the title track and the album respectively. I am thankful that it helped me grow as a person and that it connected so many people!

[Z J]

Just in case anyone missed Mike's post on Instagram a couple days ago

They are nottttttttttttttttttttt breaking up

[StuckWithDom]

They are nottttttttttttttttttttt breaking up

no one suggested they were...

[Z J]

no one suggested they were...

Plenty have

[DookieLukie]

no one suggested they were...

I have. Still believe it.

[Spike]

Lol.

[StuckWithDom]

Plenty have

no one should then

[November's Storms]

It took me until 2009 to finally listen to the album all the way through. It was after rediscovering Green Day with the release of 21st Century Breakdown and my thorough enjoyment of that album that I thought it would be good to work my way back on the Green Day catalogue. So I worked my way back on the discography and listened to American Idiot all the way through. I fell in love with the album instantly.

That's exactly how I got into Green Day. 21stCB was all big news and I decided to see what the whole fuss was about, and AI was the only album I had by them at that stage. Went out and bought International Superhits and 21stCB together a week later.

[Mykee Mexx]

He was dreaming of a song but something went wrong.

And you just gave him the right lyrics for the forthcoming Quatrology.

[The Disappearing Boy]

*Inserts emotional comment about how the album changed my life* *waits for the likes to flood in*

Something like that.

Listened to it yesterday - it's still brilliant. Homecoming is still their best song.

[Spike]

*Inserts emotional comment about how the album changed my life* *waits for the likes to flood in*

Something like that.

Listened to it yesterday - it's still brilliant. Homecoming is still their best song.

I would rep this but I don't appreciate your sass, boy.

[The Disappearing Boy]

I would rep this but I don't appreciate your sass, boy.

I have a fine sass, thank you very much.

[Mar]

I didn't get the album until about March 2005 (it was definitely after it won at the Grammys that year), but I do remember seeing the AI video for the first time one morning before I went to school. I was one of those FUCK BUSH kids and a little VH1 News tag before they played the video kind of played up an anti-Bush ideology with the song (one that I now believe is incredibly overstated in the context of that song and album; that was a media-generated identity), so it immediately caught my attention.

I bought the album on a day I was going to spend the night at my grandma's house, so I brought alone my Walkman to listen to it at her house. I put on JoS and I was just stunned; I had never heard anything like it, and I don't think I'll ever have such a strong reaction to a song ever again in my life.

[nimrosomniac]

I wish I could sum up American Idiot into one sentence, but I can't.

I would have to second this for myself as well. Spent all day yesterday celebrating and thinking about this. I can't go into the whole story but I was in high school at the time, going through a lot & AI gave me motivation to stand up for myself.

And that was also the last time I saw them, and the last they even came to play around where I live... which is another story :/

[Spike]

I wish I could sum up American Idiot into one sentence, but I can't.

I think you just did.

[lizziebix]

Reading your stories makes mine so lame. The fact is, I don't really have an AI story, really. I remember seeing the making of the American Idiot video and loved that and it reminded me that I hadn't listened to Green Day in a really long time and was kind of curious what they were up too. So Holiday and Blvd of Broken Dreams became my favorites but even though I had bought the CD it really wasn't until 21st CB that my fandom really kicked back in. Not really sure why it took me so long to really appreciate AI.

Anyway Happy Birthday AI! Happy you're still relevant 10 years later.

[Cameron.]

Letterbomb tho...

[Hermione]

Just finished listening to the album in full, it's so fucking good. Enjoying reading everyone's stories about it here too!

[Backyard Skulls]

I never really paid much attention to it, being ten at the time. It wasn't until around 2005 when I first remember hearing Boulevard of Broken Dreams on the radio. Something just gripped me about the song, even to this day I still get goosebumps when I hear it. I knew from hearing Billie Joe singing the opening line: "I walk a lonely road, the only one I have ever know" resonated with me somehow. The echo-y guitars and the loud chorus were amazing to my young ears.

It was something new and different, I was just going into my last year of primary school. Life was quite turbulent at that point, but in a good way. My little brother had just been born that year and my mum and now step dad were considering getting married. Lots of changes, green day were my only constant then.

On Christmas 2005 I received my own copy of American Idiot. I listened to it almost daily. I was hooked. Something about the swears and loudness made it seem almost dirty- like I shouldn't have been listening to it. Although then I didn't appreciate the slower songs like Wake me up when September ends or Whatsername. It was all about the blistering guitars of St Jimmy, Holiday or American Idiot. Homecoming then was another favourite.

Fast forward to the end of summer 2006. I had started at secondary school. During the summer I had been given a copy of their singles compilation, International Superhits, so I started to get into their back catalogue. I was never 'popular', I had friends though but just wasn't ~cool~. American Idiot was still my favourite album, I got known pretty quickly as 'the green day fan'. Even now that's stuck with me! (Haha punny yes). I wore my green day pendant and wristbands with pride.

Green day were my way of escaping, listening to them helped me out of so many bad and good times. As cliche as it is I felt like I belonged listening to American Idiot.

I just find it strange how one band, yet alone one album could change and shape my life so much.

Thank you Green Day.

[H0m3coming]

I think my first encounter with the American Idiot album was around 2005 when I was about 8 years old. I was at my best friends house and heard his older brother blast out some song from the album, I think it was Jesus Of Suburbia. It was not until a couple of weeks later when another friend of mine (who was a few years older then me) showed me American Idiot and Holiday that I started to "like" Green Day I think. I remember we both had phones that had IR-sensors and I managed to convince him to transfer quite a few songs from the album (which took forever ). I still didn't really know who Green Day where though, only that I liked their music. I don't really remember what happened after that, but I guess I changed phone or maybe started listening to some other songs or something, I don't know.

The next time I encountered American Idiot was during late 2013, and I'm very happy about that, because that was when I needed it the most; I had started in a new school and didn't have any "real" friends, me and my family had just moved to a place which I didn't like at all, my OCD had started to come back and I felt extremely lonely. No matter what I did or who I talked to, I felt lonely. I don't really know how to describe it in words but it is probably one of the worst things I have ever experienced and I don't think I have ever been so "down" as I was back then. I felt like I was the brink of just giving up, quit school and just say "Fuck You" to everything and everyone. But then one day I was randomly browsing Spotify and stumbled onto the American Idiot album. I eventually listened to Jesus Of Suburbia and a flood of memories, from when I was with my best friend when I was a kid, rushed through my head, and somehow I a little light was born in all of my darkness (probably sounds more dramatic then it was, haha).

I felt like I wasn't alone anymore, because even though I was (and am) the complete opposite of JoS (a computer nerd who had social anxiety and could barely talk to girls, or really anyone, without stumbling and making myself incomprehensible) I could still relate to more or less every line in the 10-minute long song. Jesus Of Suburbia became my motivation, my reason to go to school and more or less my everything for a short while until I got a little more self-esteem and started to "come back" to life (again, probably a little overly dramatic hahaha).

After a while I started listening to other songs on the album and I think it's crazy how accurate some of these songs are about ones feelings. They are also the only songs I have ever listened to that have made me feel so much. Just as Backyard Skulls said, I felt like I belonged somewhere. Listening to American Idiot, but also a lot of other songs from other albums of Green Day, became my way of escaping reality for a few minutes, whenever I needed to get away or think about something else for a few minutes, and I'm so thankful that they exist. I don't know what I would have done without them, especially Jesus Of Suburbia, and they mean the world to me. Tank you Green Day!

[katie]

i was in catholic school and i remember thinking 'shit, i'm such a rebel for listening to this'... but in all reality it really was the jumping off point that got me into all types of music, which in turn impacted my life in so many ways. it also caused me to find this place- which played a major role in my life when i was a pretty impressionable kid.