"American Idiot" Does the "One-Step!
the most tuneful of Green Day albums
Serious Green Day fans will tell you American Idiot is not their favorite G.D. album and I'm not going to go down the road of naming names and producing my Top 10 G.D. albums. Your choice, but there are so many great ones, mostly fast, furious, Clash inspired all-American teen-angst infused punk with sly humor added.
2004's American Idiot is Green Day's Tommy—an ambitious, tune-filled, provocative rock opera that critiqued life in W's America and "the red-neck agenda", but the title song could have been written yesterday.
The musical menu channels at times Ray Davies, David Bowie, Pete Townshend and even Johnny Cash, but subtly done as DNA insertions— musical shadow boxing—not as obvious quotes. The story centers around a disillusioned teen character named "Jesus of Suburbia", but as with Tommy you can enjoy the tunes without getting too deeply into the storylines.
Decades later the multi-platinum-selling album wears really well. You could say the times have circled back to it. Billie Joe Armstrong and the band found that space between aggression and reflection and that left plenty of room to explore feelings other than fury. The loss of Armstrong's father at age ten produced "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and it still sears, as does "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". The album produced a successful Broadway show that I'm glad I got to see, though I was worried the music would be watered down. It wasn't.
And here we are in 2024 with a costly $124.00 "One-step" edition housed in a Stoughton Printing "Old Style Tip-On" gatefold jacket, itself housed in a deluxe silver-leaf embossed slip-case. RTI pressed on Neotech VR900-D2 180g weight, with lacquers plated by Dorin Saurbier at RTI. All of this information is printed in plain sight on the slipcase rear. This is really a good step in educating record buyers as to what's involved in making a record. I think all of this should regularly be credited on record jackets.
Of at least equal importance, the album has been re-mastered using a high-resolution 192/24 bit file sourced from the original "master tape". That's in quotes because the recording's origin is mixed. According to best sources, the rhythm tracks were recorded analog to tape and then transferred to high resolution digital and all subsequent tracks were digitally recorded. Then the album was mixed to analog tape. Good luck with formulating a SPARS code on this one.
The final mix was notably compressed as was the fashion of the time, which for rock is not a capital sin. My copy is the 2006 Adeline Records edition (AR033-1) mastered 1/2 speed by the late Stan Ricker and pressed at RTI. The credits on the "Tip on" style gatefold jacket list Ted Jensen as mastering engineer. He was the original and those records on Discogs fetch more money than does this one, but the Adeline one is listed at around $100.
However, this new one mastered by Levi Seitz at Blackbelt Mastering sounds far, far superior to what Stan did almost twenty years ago. When I pulled out the Stan version and played it I realized how few spins I'd given it and more significantly, how few times I'd actually made it through the entire record.
I'd been sent a test pressing by my old pal Tom "grover" Biery, who produced this record along with the Linkin Park "One-Steps". He also produced the Because Sound Matters editions for then Warner Brothers of Van Morrison, James Taylor and others back in the early 2000s.
Malachi Lui, now living in New York paid a visit and we sat down and compared Stan's cut (using a different, older file for sure) with Levi's new one (I later did same with the official One-Step set). The old ears and the young agreed that there was no comparison. Stan's cut (or the file he was given) has a searing and annoying top end and pushed mid bass plus minimum transparency.
Levi's EQ balance makes for far more pleasant (head banging) listening. The bass and drums have a bracing tautness without bottom or top end exaggeration that lets you crank it up to your preferred SPLs. Seitz's mastering is so tight and "in the pocket"! The Celeste on "Dearly Beloved Part IV" has "in the room" delicacy and surprising transparency and three-dimensionality totally lacking in Stan's cut. That's but one indication of the differences in overall transparency and three-dimensionality (just don't expect "Living Stereo"!). Dynamics though still partially smashed are way better! You can push up the SPLs as high as you wish and still enjoy.
This is a 100% successful reissue. And easy to recommend! I've played it more since getting the test pressing than I played the Adeline record that's been here for eighteen years! Available on the Because Sound Matters online store and backordered elsewhere.
