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If it is, then I will gladly hop onto that train, no shame here.

Agreed. I noticed that in those songs too, it's interesting to see the problems don't show up from nothing one day. I consider 21stCB as a high quality album, the songs are just well written and the lyrics are very deep in my opinion. I used to listen to that album a lot, I mean it's one of my favourite and I highly appreciate it. I comlpetely agree on what you said about the storyline - I always ignored it mostly, because I liked the fact the songs can stand at their own without the storyline and still they make sense. There is so much behind some of those songs. The process was probably exhausting, but I think they managed to make an outstanding record. I think you're right. I mean, people often say they made that record only because AI was so succesful so they say it's just AI part II. For me, that opinion sounds quite stupid. No matter what the outcome is, the way they created it is always important for me, to try to understand it before I'll say something. That's what I like about this band, that they at least talk about what was it like for them to make a record and I find it interesting that it shows up in the songs as a result, too. I only keep removing the characters from the album, mostly, because then I see that the person who wrote it probably wouldn't write anything like that if he wouldn't have some kind of experience with it himself - and that's interesting I don't do this with AI, don't know why, maybe beacuse the storyline is somehow more concrete so I don't feel lost in it. I agree, the lyrics are brilliantly written, I consider some of those songs one of their best lyrically. My thoughts

I hope they keep Private Ale. It's a song I almost completely forgot about but a while ago I saw a video of it from iheart and fell in love with it. It's so fun live!

Foxboro Hot Tubs have played My Generation a couple of times so they're definitely capable of it! I'm also a big fan of Private Ale and No One Knows, would love to see them.

Is liking Revolution Radio an unpopular opinion now? Geez.

Thank you very much for your feedback. I love discussing matters with you since your posts are also very insightful and in-depth. 21st Century Breakdown is undoubtedly lyrically their most brilliant album. The story, however, should have been less vague. It loses its thread after Peacemaker and only picks it up with Restless Heart Syndrome. Had it been thoroughly fleshed out, the record would have equaled American Idiot storywise. Sometimes a magnum opus can drive an artist crazy to his own detriment. Psychologically Christian is a very interesting character, particularly how his thoughts and perception of the world relate to Billie's own perspective on the things he writes about. Billie's personal state of mind is almost tangible in songs like Restless Heart Syndrome and See the Light. 21CB is on a personal level brutally honest when one looks past the literal meaning of its lyrical brilliance and pierces the dramatic opacity of Christian and Gloria which separates the creator from the listener. I cherish this record intensely because I don't think Billie wants to top it. Few legendary acts have produced more than two distinctive rock operas. They stand next to Pink Floyd and Rush in having accomplished that, but even they couldn't keep churning out such epic records for longer than a decade without some loss of quality. 21CB is the apex of their rock opera era, but also the end of it. They have completed that part of their musical voyage and have moved on and rightly so, for those who try recapture halcyon grandeur by re-enacting their heydays only end up blemishing their legacy. I can talk for days about the significance of this record for them as a band and what it meant for me as a listener and a person.

@Dakke, your posts are always so insightful and I really appreciate them. Your analysis of the behind-the-scenes situation with 21CB is very accurate, I believe. Just maybe a month or two ago, for some reason I felt the need to go back and read their Rolling Stone article from the beginning of that era. And I was blown away by how negative it read. Nothing about it was happy or exciting or hopeful, it was all about what a monster it was to create and how Billie was nervous about his kids listening to some of the darker things he wrote. It's interesting though—all that laboring over the album could definitely be viewed as forced, but I genuinely think it's one of their absolute best albums. I actually like the loose storyline of 21CB better than the more concrete one in AI. I love how Billie plays with identity and who you are versus what you project to the world. How Christian thinks Gloria is this amazing person, only to realize she's just a junkie preaching to the choir, and how Christian rages against "the enemy" only to realize he's his own worst enemy—it is brilliant writing in my mind.

Interesting how the Foxboro album which was put out quickly and as a "break" for other songwriting is high quality than the album it was considered a break from.

The gap was due to the difficult writing and conception process of 21st Century Breakdown. It took them 40 months from January 2006 to the end of recording in April 2009. Remember that they needed a third that amount of time to conceive, write and record American Idiot in its entirety (now I do believe Billie certainly drew some inspiration thematically and structurally from Warning, particularly Warning (political) and Misery (story)). It was a very frustrating process and Billie actually created the Hot Tubs alter ego to be away from the new album for a while. The Hot Tubs were their wild, unencumbered counterpart, but it's also around that time (2008) that Billie started drinking more extensively again. In the context of the wild FBHT shows, that posed no cause for concern, but in hindsight it sowed the seeds for the excessive abuse in the period between Broadway musical opening and iHeart. Therefore the long and frustrating creation of 21CB contributed indirectly to him going off the rails and even then Billie knew things were going wrong. If you listen to Restless Heart Syndrome and See the Light and pay close attention to the lyrics, there's a personal darkness lurking behind the conceptional gloom which was only fully revealed on Dos! Now to return to the matter at hand, I don't believe it impacted the quality of the individual songs in a negative way. Save for Know Your Enemy, they are all lyrically of the best musical craftsmanship. The overall story, however, shouldn't have been there in the first place and suffered under the grand ambition to create an even longer and more epic record than AI. With its 70 minute length standard edition, it flirts with the limit of how long a single record can be without losing quality. The gap of course also allowed for more polish, but I don't think the storyline benefitted from the prolonged conception of the record. It almost certainly took a great toll on Billie's mind and body and is probably culpable of giving way to Billie's abuse post release. Rock operas are very time and energy-consuming to write and produce, particularly to keep a story straight and sensible throughout. There's a reason why the Who never wrote a third rock opera after Quadrophenia. Rush stated very explicitly that the troublesome recording process of their fourth opera Hemisphere led them towards more conventional, non-concept records, starting with Permanent Waves.

I'm really hoping that Kerplunk and Insomniac will get some good exposure on the tour! I'd do literally anything to see 80, Holden, Stuart and Bab's live in person

I didn't know that was a thing, lol! Adorable. "I am character approved, personality not so approved"

a couple of video from 2010 USA Character Approved Award