Green Day – Saviors
Reprise Records
Release Date: January 19, 2024
What is a “savior?” Who is considered a “savior?” Where can I find a “savior?”
Do “saviors” give us a foundation? Or are they more of a guiding post? More specifically, do “saviors” provide strength and comfort in times of trouble?
I’m asking these questions because in a final analysis, what makes our world fascinating is how we choose to celebrate our lives and who or what we choose to celebrate, instead of mowing each other down due to our personally-held beliefs on what we might consider right and/or just.
Saviors is the title of Green Day’s fourteenth studio album, and the trio of usual suspects which have been together since 1991’s Kerplunk! LP are at the controls – Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar/vox), Tré Cool on drums and Mike Dirnt (bass/backing vox). This record also reunites the group with acclaimed producer Rob Cavallo — who last worked with the band two decades ago in sessions that would become a ‘punk rock opera’ known as American Idiot.
Back to the present. Saviors is an unexpectedly terrific and complex album. Does it offer clear answers to any of my proposed questions for a definition of ‘“savior?” I don’t know and I’m glad to not know. My days of being spoon fed are in the recesses of my mind.
After dozens of listens to Saviors (so far), I’ve reached this conclusion: the entire tapestry of rock and roll on display here is comprised of individual ‘saviors,’ all connectors of worlds, serving as one form of escapism or another for so many people who bring music into their lives. Maybe for you it’s The Bobby Fuller Four, perhaps Celtic punk, Cheap Trick, or mid 90’s Britpop. This record is unmistakably constructed by the creative mind-meld of Green Day, and I am thoroughly enjoying how they have woven sonic textures not found in their previous works.
Twenty years after American Idiot‘s new kind of tension, our televisions are still dreaming of tomorrow, and millions of us continue to inhabit our carefully curated abodes in oblivion. To paraphrase Billie Joe Armstrong on Saviors “Coma City,” we ‘pull down the shade / board up the windows and drink lemonade’ all while in this time of collective uncertainty ‘bankrupt the planet for assholes in space.’
In America, we live through day to day culture wars, arguments over the existence of climate change, regular reports of gun violence, constant threats to eliminate women’s reproductive rights, freedoms of religion, freedoms of self-expression and basic human dignity and rights, along with access to mental healthcare. “Coma City” holds all of us accountable for what’s been happening for quite some time now.
To quote a snippet from Saviors “The American Dream is Killing Me,“ ‘We are not home / are we not home?’ Perhaps both, at this moment.
On Green Day’s full length Revolution Radio (Reprise, October 2016), Armstrong warned all who would listen that we are indeed living in troubled times. In 2024, Saviors showcases an arresting visual of indifference on its cover, suggesting America is deeply entrenched in its own form of The Troubles.
‘Living in chaos / Sick and I’m bored / Take me to urgent care or the record store’
Here are a few of my favorite tracks off of Saviors. Happy listening!
“1981”
“Coma City”
“Suzie Chapstick”
“Father to a Son”
Cover to Cover 