Smash it up (Smash - Offspring)

Member Name: kylecoare

Product:	Smash - Offspring
Date:	03/12/03 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some great tunes

Disadvantages: A Few fillers

OFFSPRING - SMASH
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The Offspring, A band that most people will have heard of at some point. This is mainly due to the annoying singles, "Pretty fly (for a white guy)" and "Original Prankster".
Now what most wont know, is that they were once a very good, Powerful, Political rocking punk band that didn't need gimmicks to sell an album.

I remember being back at school and raving on about how great these were, People would just laugh at me!
Then a few years later and they release the above named singles and again everyone is laughing at me for loving them so much, Life sucks!

Back in the mid 90's, alongside Green Day and to a lesser extent Rancid, these brought punk music right back into the mainstream, for a while you couldn't listen to your radio or watch MTV without one of these bands playing at you.

Originally forming in the late 80's, the band took to playing punk more out of need than by trying as none of the band members could actually play their instruments very well, this didn't stop their self titled debut album from being a stormer though.

In 1991 the band released second album 'Ignition', which showed a very strong rock element to their sound, and gave the band quite a few new fans, but little did they know what was going to happen with third album, the aptly titled 'SMASH'

Well smash isn't really the word destroy would be better, as this is what it did to the record of highest selling indie album, when it went over 10 million sales worldwide, never before or since has this amount records have been sold by an indie band.

After this they band slowly went downhill, with each following album being a bit more poppy and more like a diluted version of this their classic album.

MEMBERS
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DEXTER HOLLAND - Vocals and Guitar
NOODLES - Guitar
GREG K - Bass
RON W
ELTY - Drums

THE ALBUM
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The album comes in at 46 minutes, with 14 tracks.

TRACK ONE - TIME TO RELAX

This is a spoken word piece about how relaxing and soothing music is...

TRACK TWO - NITRO (YOUTH ENERGY)

... which is a very sarcastic and quite funny comment seeing how fast paced most numbers on this album are.

Such as this the real opening track, kicking in with 100 mph drums, these are soon joined by an aggressive energetic guitar riff, which blows you off your seat.

This holds out throughout most of the song, and is a very catchy riff, although not in the poppy Green Day vein, it is more reminiscent of bands like Bad religion or Pennywise.

The vocals are normally the point in which non fans are put off by this band, this is mainly due to Dexter's Sneering nasally voice, but it does grow on you, and once it does then you would never be able to hear these songs sung by anyone else.

TRACK THREE - BAD HABIT
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Only two real songs in and we already have a stand out track.

The song opens with the nasally solo vocal from Dexter with just a simple bass line behind him, then the music kicks in like a 10 ton lorry doing 150 mph.

If you imagine Motorhead with a more pop sound then you'd have a fair idea of how the music sounds.

The song is about road rage and how people go over the top about people cutting them off etc.

Half way through the song the music stops for a vocal part by Dexter which needs hearing to understand how well it works, although the bad language may put off a few listeners!

Then it kicks back into the original riff and drives home to pick first place in the punk rock race.

TRACK FOUR - GOTTA GET AWAY
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This was one of the singles from the album, and is a bit different from most songs on this album, its a slower cru
nchy riff filled tune, which is extremely catchy and shows the chart potential this band had even then.

The music is filled with stop/start chuggy guitars, and shows Noodles under-rated guitar playing.

Vocally this is where Dexter's voice works best, with the slower tracks, while its still nasally and sounds like he should clear his throat, it works so well on the slower numbers.

TRACK FIVE - GENOCIDE
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One of the downsides with this band is that they can produce some amazing tracks and then come up with a simple shouty anthem, which whilst not bad, is just Offspring by numbers, this is a problem with each of their six albums.

This song is one such Offspring by numbers song, whilst its good with a very catchy riff and some well done vocals it falls flat somewhere, and ends up being just background music.

TRACK SIX - SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
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This song is pretty similar to the last in that it is a pretty standard song from a band that can produce some amazing moments.

The music is pretty bland and doesn't really grab the attention quite as well as you would expect on an album of this quality, but when listened to as an whole album this is a good song, but as a single song it looses points.

TRACK SEVEN - COME OUT AND PLAY
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Possibly , no not possibly, definitely the best Offspring song ever released, this song is a prequal to the annoying 'Pretty fly..' in that it takes the same style, but to a much better effect.

Musically this is about as good as you can expect a punk record to get, it wont fail to get you bouncing around, even if this isn't your usual style of music.

The music stops and starts in all the right places, with some nice Indian sounding guitars placed all over the place to add to the brilliance of the song.
Probably the most imp
ortant song in the bands catalogue, and one that they have been trying to recreate ever since with the aforementioned 'Pretty fly' and ' Original Prankster', but where this one really excels over those is in that the lyrics actually mean something, the song is about teen violence and drug warfare.

The song contains a lot of different styles and is one every music fan should at least hear.

TRACK EIGHT - SELF ESTEEM
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Smells like teen spirit, that's basically what this song is, but with new lyrics.

The lyrics are about a guy that's seeing a girl that basically treats him like a doormat and sleeps with all of his friends.

A song for anyone that has ever been in a bad relationship, trust me!

If Kurt Cobain had been alive he could have sued for this, but i doubt he would have done as it is just such a class song that it deserves it's space in the music world.

TRACK NINE - IT'LL BE A LONG TIME
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Back to Offspring by numbers, with a song that has enough energy to power the UK for weeks, but not enough ideas to really hold the attention as a single song, but it works well on the album.
The music is very fast paced, with the drums hardly stopping between beats and the guitars playing almost as fast.

The vocals are pushed a little further back into the track, making the music he main focus point, which is a good idea but sadly its the wrong track to do this on.

TRACK TEN - KILLBOY POWERHEAD
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This is a cover of a punk band called the Didjits, I've never heard the original so i cant comment on how good a cover it is, but i can say that its a very catchy little number, although very short on lyrics, with only a few words in the whole song.

Its another 100 mph anthem, which will certainly make you jump around.

TRACK ELEVEN - WHAT
HAPPENED TO YOU
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A vision of what was to come from the band, with this punk ska number, very pop filled, but also very catchy.

Unlike later albums where this sort of song would have been annoying, it really works here because its played so well and it is as catchy as the flu.

With its very jumpy two tone guitar riff, and the simple drawn back drums this is thew offspring doing ska well.

The song is about how drug abuse can ruin your life, which sounds a bit strange with the happy sounding music.

TRACK TWELVE - SO ALONE
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Back to Offspring by numbers, with a fast paced dark guitar driven song.
Dexter's vocals are pushed so far into the mix that you can barely hear them.

This is personally my worst song on the album, but its only about a minute and a half long, so it doesn't need skipping!

TRACK THIRTEEN - NOT THE ONE
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A lot more vocal orientated than some of the previous songs, this may not be a great musical song, but it makes up for it in Dexter's cool meaningful vocal performance.

The music is filled with mid paced guitars and drums.

TRACK FOURTEEN - SMASH
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This is a real teen anthem about not being one of the trendy people, and the song really has a lot of feeling to it, and it had been played earlier in the album would have been a great song,. but it suffers from being at the end where people may turn the cd off after listening to the rest.

Musically a fast paced tune with a very catchy chorus, which you cant help sing along with.
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OVERALL
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Whilst it may not sound a great album from the review as a lot of the songs are very formulaic, it really works in practice and id advise anyone with a punk bone in their bodies to try this, its the perfect mix of metal a
nd punk with a nice dash of pop.

Thanks for reading

Kyle.

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