21st Century Breakdown (2009)

21st Century Breakdown is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Green Day, released on May 15, 2009, through Reprise Records. Green Day commenced work on the record in January 2006 and forty-five songs were written by vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong by October 2007, but the band members did not enter studio work until January 2008.

21st Century Breakdown is a concept album and rock opera, much like their previous album American Idiot (2004). According to the band, the album is a rumination of "the era in which we live as we question and try to make sense of the selfish manipulation going on around us". The singles "Know Your Enemy" and "21 Guns" exemplify the themes of alienation and politically motivated anger present in the record.

To handle the record, they turned to producer Butch Vig, best known for producing Nirvana's Nevermind (1991). Critical response to 21st Century Breakdown was positive, though it was generally seen as inferior to American Idiot upon release. The record achieved Green Day's best chart performance to date, reaching number one on the album charts of various countries, including the United States Billboard 200, the European Top 100 Albums, and the United Kingdom Albums Chart. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album at the 52nd Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010. As of December 2010, 21st Century Breakdown has sold 1,050,000 copies in the United States and more than 4 million worldwide. At a runtime of 69 minutes and 16 seconds, it is Green Day’s longest studio album to date.

As the band's first album since 2004's American Idiot, the five-year hiatus marked the longest gap between studio albums in the band's history. It has since gained a cult following.

Writing and recording

Green Day began to write new songs for what would become 21st Century Breakdown in January 2006 after touring extensively in 2005 in support of their seventh studio album American Idiot. At the time, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong stated: "We'll start with silence, and that's how we'll be able to find the inspiration to find another record." The band did not release any details of the writing and recording process until October 2007, when Armstrong said in an interview with Rolling Stone that he had written "something like 45 songs". The band members worked on the primitive conceptual stages of the album at their rehearsal studio in Oakland, California. Little was revealed on the themes or musical style of the album, but Armstrong stated: "I want to dig into who I am and what I'm feeling at this moment – which is middle-aged." He added that many of the 45 songs were written on piano instead of guitar.