Song · Green Day
“Know Your Enemy” by Green Day
From the album 21st Century Breakdown (2009)
“Know Your Enemy” by Green Day appears on 31 radio countdowns from 30 stations between 2009 and 2020. It was first released in 2009 on the album 21st Century Breakdown. Its best result is #3 on the KSLG Top 94 of 2009. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #13 alternative song of 2009, #6,686 alternative song of all time and #134 of the '00s.
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Green Day hadn't put out a single since "Jesus of Suburbia", four years back, when "Know Your Enemy" hit on April 16, 2009 as the opening shot from 21st Century Breakdown, their eighth album. It's a protest song, plain and loud: Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the words, the whole band the music, and the anger hasn't cooled a degree since American Idiot. Butch Vig produced, buffing the punk just enough to make it gleam, and the chorus is a fist-pumping chant made for the radio.
Radio obliged. It became the first song to top Billboard's Rock Songs, Alternative Songs and Mainstream Rock charts all at once, one of just three that pulled off the hat trick, and it went gold, with 798,000 copies sold by August 2010.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 417 | Live 105 | Live 105 Memorial 500 Song List (2009) | 500 |
| 2020 | 96 | The Buzz | The Buzz Top 99 Songs of the Decade | 99 |
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