Something Old, Something New 6.23.09: Green Day vs. Cage The Elephant

Posted by Adam Battagello on 06.23.2009

Rock music stalwarts Green Day take on young guns Cage the Elephant in the first battle for singles supremacy.

Hi all, and welcome to the first of what will hopefully be many columns written by yours truly for 411music. Before we get down to business I'd like to get the formalities out of the way and just thank all those at 411 who were willing to give me a shot at getting my writing into the public forum. As a student of journalism and a wannabe music writer, things like this are the difference between me being an employed journalist or a homeless ne'er-do-well in the future. So big thanks.

Now that I'm done being classy, let's get to it. The concept of this article is relatively simple, basically every week I will choose a current single from an established, usually older band or performer and pit it against a single from a younger, less renowned group or artist. While I may seem to be picking singles at random, I will always try and select songs from artists that do have a commonality, for example I may choose a single from a young musician and pit it against a single from an older one who their career seems to be mimicking. Or, like today's article, I may take singles from the current Billboard charts and compare and contrast them. So basically what you'll be looking at is a mixture of your reviews and column pieces.

Seems simple enough right? Here we go.

This week.

Green Day- 21 Guns vs. Cage the Elephant- Ain't No Rest For the Wicked.





Let's start by taking a look at Green Day, who will be filling the role of an established name for this face-off.




It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I am not a fan of Green Day's musical direction in the past few years. I don't know why, but ‘American Idiot' just really didn't resonate with me and to be honest I can't understand all the hype that surrounded it. Maybe it's just that the release of that album led to widespread eyeliner and ties on t-shirts in my local area that it has left behind sour memories. But I digress.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't see Green Day's new album 21st Century Breakdown as the group simply flogging the dead horse of ‘rebellion against the American way of life', but that being said, there is something about the latest single 21Guns that seems to defy my current judgment of the band.

It is extremely likely in my opinion, that given a little more time, 21 Guns is going to fly to the top of the modern rock charts. The track has the classic ‘lighters in the air' feel that Green Day seems intent of reviving. Past attempts such as Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Jesus of Suburbia have, in my opinion, led to this song.

Part of what makes it so effective is all the levels you can interpret the music on as a listener. On a personal level, the song speaks to the human conditions of loneliness, the need for companionship and facing your own mortality. On a larger scale, it is a call for putting an end to hostilities, in the vein of some ‘can't we all just get along' mantra. Considering how long they've been together as a group and how many years they've been at work in the business, it doesn't surprise me that Green Day are capable of writing such an emotionally rousing song.

But is it enough to help them overcome the young guns of the competition?




I wasn't overly familiar Kentucky rockers Cage The Elephant heading into my first article, I had heard bits and pieces of reviews but had generally made the foolish assumption that they weren't worth my time. Honestly, I needed a younger band to fill my ‘up and comers' portion, and when I saw how successful their single ‘Ain't No Rest For The Wicked' off their self titled album had been on the modern rock tracks in previous weeks, I thought they fit the bill. Now, how best to sum up how I feel about this song. After listening to this track, then writing this article, I went out and bought the CD. Based on this song alone.

Simply put, I was not expecting such an amazingly catchy track to come from such a young band. I'm nothing short of awed when a group can make me feel stupid for having pre-assumptions about their music. Because rarely are my first impressions wrong. This time however I'm willing to admit I was way off the mark. Make no mistake about it folks. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked kicks ass.

The first song I was instantly reminded of upon listening to this track is the classic ‘Loser' by Beck, one of my favourite songs of all time. Both tracks possess a gritty blues-rock sort of feel that I'm a big fan of, so me liking this track was a no brainer.

I'm always going to be a sucker for any song that takes me on a mind warping journey, and Ain't No Rest For The Wicked does that better than any track I have heard in quite some time. The singer belts out his recollection of a hazy trek in which the central character repeatedly comes into contact with self-serving people out to make a buck, only to eventually realise that everybody is after the same thing- "We all seek out to satisfy those thrills."

I strongly insist that you watch the film clip as well. In my mind there is nothing better than a dream sequence kind of clip that follows a very loose narrative, some of the best clips are based around this concept and Ain't No Rest For The Wicked is no exception.

Now on to the hard part. Which single do I think is the better of the two?

I came into this first article thinking there was no way that a younger band would be able to knock off an established name in the foreseeable future. I was under the belief that by being around for longer, the established bands had proved both their ability and their worth and that I was going to find it hard to put a young, unproven band ahead of this.

21 Guns certainly made a good attempt at swaying my opinion towards Green Day. It is the first song by the group in several years that I can genuinely say I enjoy, and has gone a long way towards eradicating the negative view I had began to develop in relation to the band.

That being said, Ain't No Rest For The Wicked, to put it metaphorically, blew me out of the water. Cage the Elephant have the kind of energy that I haven't seen in Green Day since the Dookie era, and it transfers well into this single. Everything about this song just hits the right notes for me as a listener. The music, the lyrics, the concept, the film clip. It's all there in spades.

Looks like, in this first edition of Something Old, Something New, I've gotta give the win to the younger lads from Cage The Elephant.

Congratulations boys you've won the greatest prize of all. My admiration…


That's all for the first edition of Something Old, Something New, I know I'm my harshest critic, but I think it was brilliant...

Now only if I can find a way to get them to let me cover this




Happy sailing.