narrative style about abandonment and vengeance in "Before the Lobotomy", "Christian's Inferno", and "Peacemaker". Rolling Stone noted that the album is "the most personal, emotionally convulsive record Armstrong has ever written". The title track's opening lyric "Born into Nixon, I was raised in hell" references Armstrong's birth year of 1972, while "We are the class of '13" references the fact that his eldest son, Joseph, would graduate from high school in 2013. Dirnt has expressed his belief that "Last of the American Girls" was written about Armstrong's wife Adrienne, who he claimed is steadfast in her beliefs and assertively defends them, as is the topic of the girl in the record. 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. "East Jesus Nowhere" rebukes fundamentalist religion and was written after Armstrong attended a church service where a friend's baby was baptized. Musically, 21st Century Breakdown is similar to the punk rock style of American Idiot, but many critics have claimed that Green Day's traditional sound has evolved in the five years, with 21st Century Breakdown incorporating new influences such as heavier, louder pop rock and arena rock on an epic scale. 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". MTV compared the material to that of classic rockers like The Who, while Spin called the title track "Green Day's most epic song yet". Cool has remarked: "It's important to us that we're still looked at as a punk band. It was our religion, our higher education". 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. Armstrong himself has stated: "Ground zero for me is still punk rock. I like painting an ugly picture. I get something uplifting out of singing some of the most horrifying shit you can sing about. It's just my DNA." With a running time of almost 70 minutes, 21st Century Breakdown is Green Day's longest album to date. Critics have labeled 21st Century Breakdown as pop-punk, punk rock, power pop, arena rock, post-punk, alternative rock, and pop rock. Promotion and