American Idiot is not a good album

Actually, that's a bit of an overstatement. I've only heard three songs, and while American Idiot is almost painfully trite and I change the station the second I realize that Wake Me When September Ends is coming, they're not worth a 'blog post. On the other hand Boulevard of Broken Dreams manages to be both trite and completely meaningless, all at the same time, and I think that's probably something of an accomplishment.

To be fair, Boulevard does have a point. The singer is lonely. We've all been lonely at times I'm sure, and so the natural impulse may be to sympathize, identify, etc. However, before getting too gushy, let's take a look at the lyrics.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known

The empty road is not exactly a stunning new metaphor, but at least it's a starting point. Also, apparently the singer isn't lonely because his girlfriend left him, he's lonely because he's never had a girlfriend in the first place. Understood. Moving right along:

Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

After the angst-ridden revelation that he's also unsure about his future, the singer returns to the original idea of being alone. While personally I might have spent a bit long developing that additional theme, at least he's introduced some new ideas.

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams

If I were being charitable, I could refer to this as a development of the earlier loneliness theme, but it doesn't really introduce any new ideas. Instead, it feels rather like an exercise in creative thesaurus use, not at all hampered by the trivia that a boulevard is a road and thus walking "a street on the boulevard" makes no sense at all.

Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

Also, he's lonely.

I walk alone
I walk alone

I was rather expecting a sudden Marilyn Monroe appearance, but his walking alone is consistent with the walking alone mentioned before, as well as the lonely road and the . . . well, walking alone mentioned right up at the beginning.

I walk alone
I walk a...

Holy shit, he's alone.

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

Another throw-away reference to something besides the "I'm alone" drumbeat here, but it's offset by the exciting new image of being only accompanied by his shadow. Wait, that's not new.

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

And I give up. Having introduced a theme in the opening lines, it hasn't been extended, refined, developed, elaborated, or even simply forgotten for long enough to be interesting again. Whatever sympathy one might have had for the singer in the opening is rapidly eroded as it becomes apparent that not only does he have nothing to say, but he's absolutely committed to driving that point home with jackhammer force. This may have been wonderfully therapeutic to write but the result isn't just bad, it's completely vacuous and frankly, there's no excuse for this being in public circulation.

Thank you. You may now return to your regularly scheduled activities.