| | village voice > music > Green Day's American Idiot by Piotr Orlov |
 | | In between, there's a girl (minor cameo by Kathleen Hanna), a possible death, and a narrative arc for the phrase "I don't care," which sours from a reliable mantra of raging punk apathy 10 minutes into the album, to a defeated declaration ("Does anybody care if nobody cares?") 10 minutes from its end. |
| | There is a pair of five-part suites toward the beginning and end (more "A Quick One While He's Away" than "Bohemian Rhapsody") outlining a loose plot about one punk protagonist with a martyr complex (Jesus of Suburbia) and another who's a self-destructive keeper of the flame (St. Jimmy). |
| | Since many of these runaways are the indirect progeny of Green Day's decade-long campaign to bring punk's various freedoms to the 'burbs, it's hard not to hear the politically charged American Idiot as their tale—a story of rebels without a clue actually looking for one. |
| www.villagevoice.com /music/0442,orlov,57678,22.html (553 words) |
