GREEN DAY'S "21st Century Breakdown" is the top-selling CD in America.

Wal-Mart is the top CD retailer in America.

But you can't buy "Breakdown" at Wal-Mart.

What gives?

The band says Wal-Mart refused to stock "21st Century Breakdown" because Green Day refused to edit the album for language and content.

But, you say, Wal-Mart carries lots of objectionable musical content among its aisles of objectionable merchandise.

True, but Green Day's album isn't mass-produced in Chinese sweatshops.

And when it comes to music, Wal-Mart's long-standing policy is not to stock any CD with a parental-advisory sticker. Bad music is cool but good music with bad words is not. Green Day wouldn't make a "clean" version of "Breakdown" because lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said, "There's nothing dirty about our record."

"They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there," he said.

"We just said no. We've never done it before. You feel like

you're in 1953 or something."

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said, "As with all music, it is up to the artist or label to decide if they want to market different variations of an album to sell, including a version that would remove a PA rating.

"The label and artist in this case have decided not to do so, so we unfortunately cannot offer the CD."

But bassist Mike Dirnt said: "As the biggest record store in the America, they should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art."

While Armstrong, Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool are still No. 1 without Wal-Mart, Armstrong said the store's policy is disappointing, considering it has become the dominant seller of CDs with the decline of traditional music stores.

"If you think about bands that are struggling or smaller than Green Day . . . what does that say to a young kid who's trying to speak his mind making a record for the first time?" Armstrong asked.

"It's like a game that you have to play. You have to refuse to play it."

Tattbits

* In Tattle's "Who should por-

tray Martin Luther King Jr." suggestion box, suggestions so far include Anthony Anderson of "Law & Order"; Forrest Whitaker, who played Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland"; and Anthony Mackie, who played Tupac in "Notorious" and is set to play Jesse Owens in a biopic of the track legend's life.

Good suggestions all, but we're sticking with Idris Elba.

* Sarah Palin has picked a col-

laborator for her memoir and unfortunately it wasn't Tattle.

That's a shame. We would have combined for a kick-butt tell-all.

A spokeswoman for SarahPAC, the Alaska governor's political-action committee, however, says that Palin has selected Lynn Vincent.

Vincent is features editor for World magazine, a conservative Christian publication and a writer of several books including "Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party" (with Robert Stacy McCain).

Palin's book is scheduled for release next year by HarperCollins.

* The secluded island home of

Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman is for sale.

Several bidders have expressed interest in the 84-acre property on the small Baltic Sea island of Faro, according to Joachim Wrang-Widen at Christie's Great Estates in London, which is managing the sale.

Bergman lived in the main house alone after his wife, Ingrid, died in 1995.

Amazingly, the entire property is dark, quiet and in black & white silhouette. *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

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