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8.0
43
8.0 |
NME
A sprawling, obvious, über-commercial, stoopid punk-pop album that might just stop five million American idiots from voting for a war-mongering Republican baby-slaughterer when they grow up. Works for me.
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6.0
44
6.0 |
Spin
The considerable sheen of Butch Vig's production lightens the gloomy antimodernity, but no song here commands your attention like ""American Idiot.""
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6.0
45
6.0 |
Evening Standard
The focus-free fury can become bluster, but some fantastic tunes should maintain stadium status.
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6.0
46
6.0 |
Independent on Sunday
More Guitar Hero-friendly rock with just the right amount of sweary angst to prove credentials remain intact.
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6.0
47
6.0 |
The Independent
The producer, Butch Vig, keeps the balance between buzzsaw guitars and vocal harmonies about right, but the new elements – Beatles-esque strings, tack piano, the Brian May-ish guitar sound on the title track – are unwelcome heralds of ill-fitting ambitions.
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6.0
48
6.0 |
PopMatters
Despite the lack of hummable rallying cries and focused ideology, 21st Century Breakdown contains some positively breathtaking moments.
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6.0
49
6.0 |
PopMatters
It simply may have been even more effective if Green Day returned to their sophomoric roots minus the grand concept. It would make American Idiot that much more precious and this album a lot more fun. But this is what Green Day is now. Matured? Yes, refreshingly so even. Still fun? That’s a harder question.
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6.0
38
6.0 |
Daily Telegraph
It is more Queen than the Clash.
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6.0
39
6.0 |
Scotland on Sunday
Not life changing but an enjoyably noisy diversion.
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6.0
40
6.0 |
Spin
Ultimately, the question isn't whether multiplatinum success has cost Green Day the right to protest, only whether that protest feels vital.
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6.0
41
6.0 |
The Guardian
Happy to repeat the kind of mistakes that sold 12m copies last time around. If it seems a little less bold, a little less surprising than its predecessor, you still wouldn't bet against 21st Century Breakdown repeating its success
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6.0
52
6.0 |
Evening Standard
The focus-free fury can become bluster, but some fantastic tunes should maintain stadium status
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5.0
42
5.0 |
The Observer
An intriguing expression of malaise but overlong and hard to take seriously.
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4.8
50
4.8 |
Pitchfork
Green Day's late-decade addiction to scale, and reinforcing their own stature, has drained all the immediacy and pleasure from their music.
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2.0
51
2.0 |
The Quietus
Isn't simply a bad album, even though it is about as bad as an album can conceivably be without actually being offensive — it's a shocking failure that underlines just how divorced from reality Green Day actually are.
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2.0
53
2.0 |
Clash
Three years’ work, for this? We’ve been had.
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