Roughly five years later, Green Day released their highly anticipated follow-up album, 21st Century Breakdown, on May 15, 2009. Since then, the rock trio has already sold about 215,000 albums. In an age where CDs are quickly going the way of the Dodo, these sales numbers are sure to make artists and record executives take note. Indeed, with sales like that, Green Day is a musical force that’s dominating the rock music world.
21st Century Breakdown, like American Idiot, is a disillusioned rock opera. In the first single, “Know Your Enemy,” lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wails this anarchic chant:
Overthrow the effigy
The vast majority
Burning down the foreman of control
Silence is the enemy
Against your urgency
So rally up the demons of your soul
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, got to know the enemy, wah hey
For a band of thirty-something white multi-millionaires, Green Day’s music is unusually angry, feisty and brutally critical of corporate America. Green Day markets itself as band trying to bring down the establishment, attempting to defy consumerist culture. After reading the sales statistics on Green Day’s two most recent albums, however, this angsty message is made ironic and almost comical. Green Day promotes the destruction of the very institutions that facilitated their success in the first place. It’s a little counter intuitive, to say the least.
Green Day is just one example of what has been a trend in America for decades now: the commercialization of teenaged angst. For years, social revolutionary movements have created images and slogans to promote their causes, only to have those same images trademarked by corporate America for financial gain.
Just look at some American fashion. Hats and shirts emblazoned with pictures of Che Guevara and “Rage Against the Machine” logos can be purchased at most malls. After being sold in chain stores, do these items hold any revolutionary weight?
No. They don’t. If anything, buying these goods supports the very establishment that “anarchic” consumers are looking to overturn.
Corporations have an amazing ability to strip power away from these defiant movements simply by selling their messages to the masses. While allowing these items to float through the public marketplace may spread opposition to “the man,” it ultimately puts dinner on his table night after night.
In an age when most goods and images are controlled and distributed by huge conglomerates, how can seditious groups truly fight back against corporate America?
Of course, they have the internet. Grassroots movements have sprouted up around the globe, only to find support in the anonymous masses that congregate on the World Wide Web. But even still, rebellion through the internet has its disadvantages. In such a huge virtual world, many ideas (particularly the radical ones) get lost amidst the clutter.
The truth is that we live in a homogenized society that is structured to make genuine rebellion difficult. “Burning down the foreman of control” isn’t nearly as easy as buying a Green Day album or wearing a Che shirt. Instead, that is the lazy way of showing support for a revolution. It’s the commercialized way, and, in an ironic twist, it often hurts the movement that it is supporting.
Green Day has proven time and time again that they can sell millions of albums and make millions of dollars by commercializing their anarchic message. But there is nothing really anarchic about Green Day; Green Day simply promotes a false sense of defiance, a faux-revolt against corporate America. Rebellion can’t be bought in Hot Topic. Angst can’t be satisfied in the aisles of Newbury Comics. In the meantime, real revolutionaries struggle to fight for their beliefs in the shadows, out of sight from popular culture.
Sources:
Moody, Nekesa Mumbi. "Green Day cd racks up sales without censorship." NewsOK 22 May 2009. 23 May 2009.
<http://newsok.com/cd-racks-up-sales-without-censorship/article/3371538?custom_click=lead_story_title>.
Pareles, Jon. "The Morning After 'American Idiot'." New York Times on the Web 29 Apr. 2009. 23 May 2009.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/arts/music/03pare.html>.
Sung, Mark. "47th Annual Grammy Awards Winners." 14 Feb. 2005. 23 May 2009.
<http://www.monstersandcritics.com/music/news/article_4401.php/47th_Annual_Grammy_Awards_Winners>.
Just playing the devil's advocate, but don't we lack any real issues to be rebellious about? As far as domestic affairs go, there's little inspiration for revolutionary, anarchic, or rebellious activity. The only semblance of activism that our generation has shown was during the Obama election, and, c'mon, was that really true, emotional, hard-hitting activism?
ReplyDeleteCould our lack of true revolutionary or activist spirit also be a generational, well, problem? The impression that I get of our generation as a whole is that we're pretty passive. Any passion we do show is on a fad-basis only. Sudan was in vogue until pretty recently. Now it's the Congo. Tomorrow it will be something else more immediate, cooler. Now, this would be great if we affected any real change in the process of moving through our fads. If we actually protested the events at Abu Ghraib (and President Obama's refusal to publish the pictures), actually did collections and volunteered in efforts to relieve the situation in the Sudan and the Congo.
My point is that it's not necessarily just the corporations for taking the teeth out of rebellion. Maybe it's somewhat our own fault. We default to bygone causes and symbols (like Che Guevera) because we lack the motivation and the passion to find our own.
Sad, eh?