Review Summary: Who knew The Offspring could still be punk as crap in 2021?
Some say that punk rock, much like history itself, works in cycles. Rise and fall. Ebb and flow. The Offspring started off turning heads with their biting wit and the equally sharp teeth of their power chords. Then the album
Smash changed the lives of many young listeners in 1994 and many years later. You will still find it in bargain bins to this day, waiting to be devoured by some kid full of raging puberty hormones and who is ready to "smash" stuff, like punk rock should make you feel. It's an absolute attack.
Fast forward to 2021. The woke mob has taken over. Punk values are under attack. Punk is now like a cat or dog who was once extremely horny, laying seed wherever its tiny brain and little micro penis wanted to. The days of
Smash and
Dookie are over, and punk is now a neutered cat or dog. Sometimes it might hump a blanket or a shoe, but to what end? It can't have a good orgasm because there's no balls, and balls are where semen is. Punk's got no way to ejaculate. Punk in 2021 is if a cat went to the vet to get fixed and the vet accidentally cut his penis off while chopping off his balls. The cat would be depressed. It might look like Billy Joe Armstrong sitting in his mansion. What is produced now may not be named dookie but it certainly is dookie for the ears.
So with that being said, that's why the new Offspring album is so refreshing. I was a punk and I skateboarded in the 90s. We spraypainted buildings, we raised hell. I stole candy, condoms, beer. You name it, I probably stole it. It was awesome. We didn't have Snapchat, Twitter. It was all about being real and true to yourself. Dexter Holland embodies this very attitude and adds a huge freaking dose of, oh I don't know, how about some goddamn chemistry? Because Dexter Holland is no mohawk menace, although he goes for the attack just the same. The man has a PHD. It is Holland's extremely high IQ that makes the music of The Offspring so precise and cutting in its attack. No words are minced. There is no room for wordplay. The Offspring are true to their name because each album gives life to the punk ethos. DIY or die. The Offspring was there.
Just look at the title of the album and the song titles. "Let the Bad Times Roll," no doubt a tribute to fallen punk Ric Ocasek, is quite blunt in its attack. It describes the bad times like all good punk rock does. No fun in the sun crap, just raw truth in the style of Jello Biafra or Glenn Danzig. "This is Not Utopia" is another attack on the modern world. We live on our cell phones, texting, tweeting, looking at fake news and bullcrap. This isn't utopia. This is like
1984 or
Brave New World and Dexter Holland doesn't have a problem telling us straight. People don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and someone's gotta tell them. Don't like it? There's always the new Nicki Minaj plastic to listen to if you can't handle Dexter's attack. Dexter is much like the main character of
Dexter's Laboratory. He is always inventing things and experimenting and staying true to himself. If you mess with either of these men, you should prepare yourself for a relentless intellectual attack. You might not be left standing. The last pacifist who could crumble an empire was Ghandi.
If you're one of the people out there who still likes punk rock in 2021, this is essential. And if you're one of the people who doesn't listen to punk rock, I think this would be a great starting point. Punk is like a tree. You can cut it down, but it will grow back. The roots are there.
