User:Turtledove963/sandbox

Background
“American Idiot” was released as single ahead of the album American Idiot in late 2004. Noted for being one of only two political songs on the album, "American Idiot" has been hailed as one of the most famous protest anthems. The song is a sum of Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’ s thoughts and opinions on American media following the actions of then-president George W. Bush during the Iraq War. The lyrics cover Armstrong’s belief that journalism had turned into “reality television” that normalizes war and violence. Other themes in the song deal with media propaganda that stirs fear, paranoia, and hysteria among the public.

Context
“American Idiot” singlehandedly kick-started 21st century protest music. Written during the Bush administration and in the midst of the Iraq War it is evident that Green Day and writer Billie Joe Armstrong were calling out issues that they had with America at the time. However, 16 years after its release this song is regaining more popularity. After the release of the American Idiot album Armstrong said, “It was very important to me when I was writing the lyrics for this album that the things I’m singing about are personal. So even the things that are political have to have a personal element to them.” While many believe that the song was written primarily to call out the Bush administration, the band says that it was about the confused state that the country was in, and that it was written out of anger. At the time of the song's release Green Day felt as though they fell under a group of people who were not being represented by the world's leaders.

Reception
"American Idiot" is considered one of the most obvious and potent protest songs in modern music. Radio X describes the song as, "a hugely politically charged-single which has firmly embedded itself into every important list of protest songs." Despite both its immediate and later connotations, critically speaking, "American Idiot" was an extremely successful record. The single became Green Day's first Billboards Top 100 song, peaking at #61. The song reached #3, #1, and #7 in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, respectively. VH1 and Rolling Stone both ranked the single as the #13 song of the decade and Rolling Stone went even so far as to place it as #432 on their "Top 500 Songs of All Time". For Green Day, the song became the catapult they needed for their career. The song was nominated for four Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year for 2005. In addition, the band's performance of the track at the 2005 Grammy Awards translated into massive commercial and critical success, and the single became one of the band's signature songs. Ian Winwood of Kerrang! goes even further stating that "Green Day did for their generation, and their country, what the Sex Pistols did for the United Kingdom in 1977." The song became a quintessential protest song that related almost perfectly with the feelings of many Americans, especially the younger generations. Frustrations with the media and a disconnected government and leaders being at the forefront of these issues. The song was not just impactful in 2004, however. Fans in the United Kingdom organized a movement to get the single back on the charts in anticipation of the 2018 visit to the UK by US President Donald Trump. The song ended up reaching #25 on the UK singles charts. The protest song was not entirely without criticism, though. Many people's opinions were echoed by comedian John Daly when he described the track as a "commodification of rebellion made into pure capitalism." To some, the song's meanings and lyrics are outweighed by the idea that it is a perceived rebellion track written by millionaire songwriters and pushed by billion-dollar record labels for the sole purpose of turning a profit.

Legacy
In a 2019 Consequence of Sound article commemorating the 15th anniversary of the album's release, Tyler Clark stated that : "Fifteen years after its release, the album that saved Green Day’s career remains, for better or worse, the most visible protest record of the Iraq War era."Although released during the presidency of George W. Bush, Green Day's front man Billy Joe Armstrong has been quoted as saying that he "would never think of American Idiot as being about the Bush administration specifically." The song has been used to protest presidential administrations since its initial release. In 2019, British citizens organized in an effort to bring the song to the top of the country's pop charts in response to a visit from US President Donald Trump. During a live performance at the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas in September 2019, Armstrong altered the lyrics of the song to protest the Trump administration, changing the lyrics from "I'm not a part of a redneck agenda," to "I'm not a part of a MAGA agenda."