Green Day, ‘American Idiot’ – Career-Saving Albums
After attaining heights previously unimaginable for a punk band with their multi-platinum-selling major-label debut, 'Dookie,' Green Day began a slow and sad decline into relative obscurity that bottomed out with 2000's 'Warning,' which barely managed a gold record. By the early aughts, Billie Joe Armstrong and the boys had been pretty much banished to playing the hockey-rink circuit, with few people thinking the band would ever be relevant again.
But then Green Day got a second act thanks to 2004's 'American Idiot,' the Bush-bashing punk rock musical that sold 16 million units worldwide and spawned hits like the title track and 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams.'