In the US, American Idiot was part of a musical mobilisation against George W Bush, the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. Inspired by a similar movement protesting the Reagan presidency in the 1980s, Fat Mike, the lead singer of NOFX, started Rock Against Bush, a loose coalition of anti-war punk and alternative bands. Two compilation albums, Rock Against Bush, Vol 1 and Vol 2, with tracks from bands including Sum 41, the Offspring, the Foo Fighters and No Doubt, funded a tour in the months leading up to the 2004 election. (The song Green Day contributed to Vol 2, “Favourite Son”, appears on a special anniversary reissue of American Idiot released on 25 October.) Fat Mike also established Punk Voter, a website that asked “everyone to mobilise as a block of concerned voters. Punk bands, punk labels and punk fans must form a union against the chaotic policies George W Bush has put in place. He must be exposed.” After spending most of the Nineties producing songs about girls, weed and bodily functions (Green Day were named after one long binge; the title of their 1994 major-label debut album, Dookie, is slang for faeces), punk had rediscovered its political nous.
It was against this backdrop that Green Day released American Idiot – their first explicitly political album, with its songs of disillusionment, suburban boredom, subliminal advertising, “a steady diet of/Soda pop and Ritalin” – on 21 September 2004.
It reached number one in 19 countries, won best rock album at the Grammys and went on to sell more than 23 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. During the month of its release, the band played the title track on CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman; the other guest that night was the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Despite the best efforts of Green Day and the Punk Voter movement, Bush was re-elected that November. But nearly 5 million more young people voted in 2004 than in 2000 – and the band’s career was revived. Green Day’s first number one was a song about watching TV and masturbating. American Idiot transformed them from the court jesters of US punk to its chief political agitators.
