Album: Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown (Reprise)

With the 12-million-selling American Idiot, Green Day tapped into a widespread disaffection with the Bush administration.

Whether 21st Century Breakdown will prove as evocative of the start of the Obama era is open to question: politicised rock'n'roll is better at bemoaning problems than offering solutions, and in this case, despair proves a readier currency than hope. Like its predecessor, it's a rock-opera concept album featuring two protagonists supposedly representative of contemporary attitudes of politically engaged American youth: but with one nihilistic and the other depressed, the deck is loaded against optimism. "Song of the Century" defines this as an era of "panic and promise and prosperity", and lines such as "My generation is zero" impose a pessimistic worldview that leaves little room for light. The desire to retain that youthful spirit of rebellion is well-meant but hardly helped by Billie Joe Armstrong's dismal prognosis, nor by the prog-rock-style three-act sequencing, which sits badly with punk-pop principles. The producer, Butch Vig, keeps the balance between buzzsaw guitars and vocal harmonies about right, but the new elements – Beatles-esque strings, tack piano, the Brian May-ish guitar sound on the title track – are unwelcome heralds of ill-fitting ambitions.

Download this: 'East Jesus Nowhere', 'Restless Heart Syndrome', 'American Eulogy'