21st Century Breakdown is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Green Day, released on May 15, 2009, through Reprise Records.

Green Day began to write new songs for what would become 21st Century Breakdown in January 2006 after touring extensively in 2005 in support of their seventh studio album American Idiot.

[10] David Bowie is credited as a songwriter on the song "21 Guns" to avoid a potential plagiarism lawsuit, as the melody of the chorus is similar to the Bowie-penned "All the Young Dudes".

[11] While writing at his home studio, Armstrong worked on a cover of The Who's 1966 mini-opera "A Quick One, While He's Away"; Green Day recorded a full-band version of the song during the album sessions.

[10] It was not until late 2008 that he chose to share his words with Cool, Vig, and bassist Mike Dirnt by sitting down with them and reading the entire album's lyrics aloud in order.

[10] The band members made the finishing touches on the album in early April 2009 and claimed that its release would lead to a "kind of... post-partum depression".

[16] Bassist Mike Dirnt has compared the relationships between the songs to those in Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, saying that the themes are not as tightly interwoven as in a concept album, but that they are still connected.

[17] Many of the record's themes and lyrics are drawn from Armstrong's personal life and he sings in the first-person narrative style about abandonment and vengeance in "Before the Lobotomy", "Christian's Inferno", and "Peacemaker".

[10] Armstrong has cited his "disconnected" childhood—he was raised by his five older siblings after their father's death, while their mother worked graveyard shifts as a waitress—as the roots of the discontent expressed on 21st Century Breakdown.

[20][21] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone indicated that the album provides ballads that are Green Day's most polished; he claimed that the band "combine punk-thrash with their newfound love of classic-rock grandiosity".

However, he also noted that Armstrong had delved into the past in writing 21st Century Breakdown, gleaning inspiration from the artists who shaped rock music.

On February 9, 2009, Green Day announced the album title and that the record would be split into three acts: "Heroes and Cons", "Charlatans and Saints", and "Horseshoes and Handgrenades".

[34] In early April 2009, Green Day premiered "Know Your Enemy" on television; a portion of the song was used as introductory music to the 2009 NCAA men's basketball tournament championship game.

"[43] The cover art was noted for a marked similarity with that of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank, itself a stencil by artist Banksy, except that one had the couple wearing diving helmets.

[56] Dan Silver of The Observer awarded the record four stars out of five and likened it to both Bruce Springsteen's music and the avant-garde writing of Chuck Palahniuk.

[2] Dan Cairns of The Times concluded: "Lyrically, it may succeed in capturing the contradictions, vulnerabilities and longing for harmony that thrum through Armstrong, Dirnt and Cool, their country, and humanity as a whole.

But its real triumph, in an age of trimming, of market testing, of self-censorship and lowest common denominators, is not simply to aim insanely high, but to make it to the summit.

"[63] Criticism centered on the concept of the record; BBC's Chris Jones said that it is "griping vaguely against 'authority'" and that "too many buzz words obscure incisive meaning".

[21] Robert Christgau of MSN Music panned the album, reserving particular distaste for the multiple songs that heavily utilize dynamics, before concluding, "I don't like right-wing Christianists either.

"[60] Adam Downer of Sputnikmusic was even less receptive, calling the album "more conceptually vague/ridiculous than American Idiot", and going on to say that it "spirals out of control in its own heroic glory and never regains focus, thus ending with a product that Green Day couldn't afford to produce: an average record".

"[25] All lyrics are written by Billie Joe Armstrong; all music is composed by Green Day; "21 Guns" credits David Bowie as additional songwriter.