It’s time for another installment of the Decades series, wherein I write about the albums released in a given year across multiple decades. I’ve been on the 4s, having covered 1974, 1984 and 1994 so far. Which brings us to 2004.

I find I’m usually disappointed once I get to the first decade of the new millennium. My personal taste starts to veer away from the critical consensus. And indeed, almost none of the albums I picked as my ten favorite from this year showed up on lists of critic’s darlings.

As usual, I’ll start by counting down my favorite albums from this year, before sampling a few of the well-received ones that missed my radar.

#10 – American Idiot – Green Day

I can’t say I’ve listened to this album much since it first came out, but I think it’s a significant enough achievement to warrant a spot on this list.

Green Day’s seventh album, American Idiot marked a change of pace and a comeback for the group after the disappointing sales of 2000’s Warning, which followed a string of multi-platinum albums in the 90s.

This album was conceived as a “punk rock opera,” telling the tale of a disaffected teen dubbed Jesus of Suburbia, and touching on social and political themes previously absent from most of the band’s work.

As a story, American Idiot isn’t very cohesive. I’ve never bothered to understand it as a narrative. It was later adapted into a Tony award-winning Broadway musical and I don’t know if it makes much more sense in that telling.

As a song sequence, though, the album is pretty thrilling. It balances Green Day’s radio-friendly punk sound with acoustic balladry, and features some ambitious multi-movement tracks that hold together really well.

American Idiot became Green Day’s first album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 14 million copies worldwide. It won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Record of the Year (for ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’) and was listed on numerous ‘best of the decade’ lists.

I don’t know if it’s had much of a lasting impact on the music world, but it remains a smart, striking critique of G.W. Bush-era America.