Green Day - American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording (2010)
Back in 2008, I remember telling a girl I had met on a boat, in the middle of bonding over shared musical tastes, that I was excited for the possibility of a musical adaptation of "American Idiot", and so was she. We both said that we'd end up going to see it, but we never did. Looking back, I think I was more excited at the possibility of hearing these songs live, than to actually hear a broadway cast perform the songs, instead of Green Day. I never ended up going to see it live (I'd still like to, though, if the chance ever arose), and when this album came out, something about hearing the songs sung by anyone other than Billie Joe Armstrong just wasn't appealing to me. Say what you will about Green Day, but Billie Joe Armstrong has a much more vocally-commanding musical leadership than a bunch of 20-somethings straight outta some Performance Arts class, and that's really to the fault of no one involved, but when you get up on stage to sing songs that have punk rock meanings and the sort, and have someone that sounds like a clean-shaven young man sing it, the sense of desperation of praying for and wanting a better country seems to be lost entirely.
That being said, despite the grievance I just listed, there's another one that gets on my nerves a bit: In Green Day's typical song-structure, it's -just- Billie Joe Armstrong singing, occasionally with bassist Mike Dirnt backing him up, so when you hear some of these songs and hear multiple vocal harmonies going off at once between three or even four people, it seems more like they're actively trying to show off "HEY, WE HAVE MULTIPLE PEOPLE ON STAGE!!" as opposed to doing what works best for the song, but hey, I guess since it's a musical, they're allowed to take artistic liberties with it, but it's still awkward to hear a multiple-harmony in the title track and others, especially on songs like "St. Jimmy" where the entire vocal performance is supposed to be from the perspective of one specific character in this "story" (I use that term loosely here, due to the story being looser than me when I get high on DXM and shove two bricks up my ass) that was weak in the first place. When you combine that with the fact that they're bringing in songs from "21st Century Breakdown" in a musical that, by its very fucking name, is based off of "American Idiot", you quickly begin to realize that they'll bastardize the plot of both albums with reckless abandon, in some attempt to connect the songs in ways that were never artistically intended, so the musical really isn't even supposed to follow the story of the very thing it's based on, but just some weird fanfiction your younger sibling thought up with friends after, in their words, "getting drunk on Rockstar". It doesn't make sense and it never even had a fucking chance to when the original plotline of both albums were weak and struggled to make ends meet in the first place.
If you disregard all of those grievances, it's an interesting and entertaining listen, if occasionally disjointed, such as the beginning of "She's a Rebel" where they quickly alternate between a violin-lead instrumental and the original alternative-rock/pop-punk sound, and that shit sounds AWFUL, but then again, the performances of "21 Guns" and "Letterbomb" are great! Sure, it sounds like a musical lead by 20-somethings in an attempt to get an A+ on some end-year art performance grading, but when you think about it, that's exactly who the original album appealed to most: The kids who dreamed of the possibility of one day getting to New York City and "making it" by following their dreams of having a shitty job waitressing at some hole-in-the-wall diner, barely making ends meet to be able to pay for their shitty $900 a month apartment, all the while believing there's a way out of this mess. Either way, interesting performance lead by some charming, bright-eyed individuals whose talent probably should've gone to, I don't know, making a musical out of some other album that would translate better to a broadway setting? Ah well, it's an interesting world we live in, seeing this band go from making songs about masturbation to getting a fuckin' musical. Don't ever stop chasing your dreams.
On a side note.. "When It's Time" uses nearly the exact same fucking chords as "Wake Me Up When September Ends". Are you fucking serious? Just how fucking lazy do you have to be?!
7/10
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Read about this album on Wikipedia! Great stuff to read while on the toilet! Yeah!
