User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
  • Record Label:
  • Release Date:
American Idiot Image
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.9

Universal acclaim- based on 841 Ratings

  • Summary: Structured as a rock opera complete with 9-minute-plus songs and a somewhat complicated storyline, 'American Idiot' is the Berkeley punk band's first album in over four years.

Top Track

American Idiot
Don't want to be an American idiot Don't want a nation under the new mania And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind fuck... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 26
  2. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.
  2. An energetic, musically ambitious pop-rock record that employs its expanded vistas in the service of animating punk's well-worn thematic underpinnings.
  3. It is exactly what the band needs to boost itself to the next level of pop-punk prowess.
  4. If the forced lyrical growth is a little stunted, it’s more than made up for by the band’s newfound sonic ambitions.
  5. Against all odds, Green Day have found a way to hit their thirties without either betraying their original spirit or falling on their faces.
  6. The observations don't always dig as deep as they're meant to, and buzzwords occasionally stand in for insights, but American Idiot finds Green Day both shaking up its formula and applying it in novel and unexpected ways.
  7. There's no economics, no race, hardly any compassion. Joe name-checks America as if his hometown of Berkeley was in the middle of it, then name-checks Jesus as if he's never met anyone who's attended church. And to lend his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sunk under their own weight back when the Who invented them.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 30 out of 351
  1. ChrisP
    Oct 16, 2004
    10
    Green Day's greatest album! I listened to it once and fell in love right away!
  2. patc
    Oct 3, 2004
    10
    its got it all. great album.
  3. DanielN
    Mar 29, 2005
    10
    This album is their best yet. I loved Dookie and appreciate the far more mature lyrics and outstanding music from this album. I'm hooked!
  4. ericr
    Feb 3, 2007
    10
    can you say BEST CD EVER!??!
  5. Dec 16, 2012
    10
    This has got to be one of the greatest albums, not just in rock history, but of all music history. Definitely one of those albums you shouldThis has got to be one of the greatest albums, not just in rock history, but of all music history. Definitely one of those albums you should listen to before you die. Expand
  6. JamieP
    Mar 3, 2006
    9
    bloody brilliant album
  7. PhillipR
    Sep 24, 2004
    0
    I was absolutely shocked and disgusted at how disappointing this album was, as this was recommended to me bya friend with normal good taste I was absolutely shocked and disgusted at how disappointing this album was, as this was recommended to me bya friend with normal good taste in music. Expand

See all 351 User Reviews