Close your eyes, spread your arms wide and concentrate, and feel the distant wrath of Green Day fans…

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[2.88]

Edward Okulicz: If 21st Century Breakdown was Green Day’s attempt to recapture the success and scope of the wildly overrated American Idiot, this points to a reversion to the excellent and unsung Warning, only with a bit of theatrical grandeur put in because they’ve earned it. Only instead of being punchy and pithy, and stealing from folk, punk and pop with a sharp chorus and good ideas, “Oh Love” wears out its welcome as soon as you realise that it’s got one riff, one “hook” and one idea and is very, very long. I thought people listened to Green Day so they wouldn’t have to listen to this sort of dross.
[2]

Alfred Soto: “Don’t stop. Don’t stop,” Billy Joe reminds himself at the start of this five-minute turgidity. It works.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Five fucking minutes! That’s nearly ten Ballads of Barton Fink! Was this improvised? Does “back to basics” really mean your 6th grade rhythm guitar lessons?
[2]

Iain Mew: Green Day do The Decemberists is not an appealing prospect. The results do at least turn out to be more dull than horrible, particularly the verses which are one drawn out holding pattern.
[4]

Will Adams: Lurches along stridently until it spills out into a chorus that is pure theatre. Billie Joe Armstrong’s thin voice is more suited to punky posturing than scenery chewing. American Idiot split the difference the best, whereas “Oh Love” falls squarely into the latter.
[4]

Anthony Easton: When did Green Day turn into late ’70s bar rock? Was it all that Broadway money?
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: I’m giving this an extra point because it will serve as the last song on the band’s forthcoming album, which leaves some hope that Green Day will somehow revert to their ’90s selves and the songs before “Oh Love” will be some great pop-punk. Unfortunately, now I know the album will end on a completely meandering note that sounds like middle-aged men trying to write about being a teenager except making the whole experience sound dull.
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: Everyone turns into their parents.
[4]