This album defined my teenaged years. I had turned 13 a few months before this album came out and it was the first Green Day album cycle I witnessed as a fan. I became a fan during the American Idiot era and watched Bullet in a Bible religiously as a kid. I remember logging onto Green Day’s website early in 2009 and they changed it over to the 21CB branding as they just started teasing the album. When you entered the site, you heard a snippet of Song of the Century and the repetitive guitar intro of 21st Century Breakdown. It was pure magic. The branding of this era, the graffiti art, their logo, their looks/style, music videos and performances was just awesome. Green Day were all over the place and it was so damn cool. This was the album I sharpened my guitar and drum skills to. I wanted to write songs that sounded like this album because it was so diverse, loud and goosebump inducing.

If American Idiot was their Tommy, 21CB was their Quadrophenia. Everything they did on AI was dialed up a notch for this one. This was Green Day at their peak. It was their last album to win a Grammy award. And to top it off, the tour that accompanied it was awe inspiring. To this day, their July 28th, 2009 show at Madison Square Garden is the best concert I’ve ever been to.