781 The Offspring - Smash (1994)

 781 The Offspring - Smash (1994)

Studio Album - Skate Punk


About the Act:

The Offspring are threesome from Garden Grove, California, and have been in existence since 1984, although for the first two years they were known as Manic Subsidal. They have had a few drummers and recently lost their founding bassist. They were part of the 1990s resurgence of Punk that included Green Day and others. They have had 10 studio albums and have sold many millions of albums worldwide.

About the Album:

This was their second album, and their breakthrough album. It is the best selling album ever from an independent record label.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

I first encountered The Offspring in my MTV-watching days in the late 90s. I liked the track "Pretty Fly For A White Guy" which was hugely successful, and bought that album, Americana. I don't know if I have ever heard this album before.  Good punk is immediate, simple, energetic, ironic and disrespectful. This does a good job of most of those things, maybe less so on the ironic. To my mind, British Punk has a long history of a sense of humour. There is humour in this, but quite darkly.

So, often, when I write these reviews, I start with description - the music, the lyrics, the performance, the voice, the production - and then talk about what I liked and didn't like. 

Can I say "punk" and take it for granted that this means something to you? It's fast and energetic rock, very guitar-based, quite simple and designed to get the adrenaline pumping. This is definitely true for this album. Sometimes quality takes a hit in the process, but here the playing is competent. The drumming (as I often find with good punk) particularly impresses me, although when I concentrate on it, the guitar playing is pretty good too. Sometimes punk blends with ska (don't ask me why, it seems to be a kind of thing) and there is one such track on this album. A nice change of pace it is too. Musically, I would say I really enjoyed it.

The lyrics are hard to make out at times (apparently the produced hated the singer's voice so deliberately buried it in the mix). What you can hear is OK, but mostly not that interesting. There is an interesting track about road rage, and another one about insecurity. The rest kind of washed over me.

The fly in the ointment is the voice, I agree with the producer on this. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm not a huge fan. That really is my only gripe, the rest is all good. I am listening for the third time as I write this and it just keeps growing on me. The wrapping together of this as an album is nice, with three spoken interludes that add an extra spark of irony to the proceedings. There is enough variety to keep it interesting.

Good album. 

8/10 


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7IDywTRaCI8qzS3X8tNU3x

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcZMZxR9uxC86NE7jaibvYapgUzSPIv5Z

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_(The_Offspring_album)



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