Album A Day: The Offspring – Americana

As per a request made by friend and future roommate Justin, some love for The Offspring.

Once upon a time about a decade ago, punk rock didn’t involve eyeliner, obnoxiously witty lyrics and superstar posturing. It’s might be hard to believe, I know, but Americana was a damn good embodiment of raucous three-chord punk. They weren’t necessarily as groundbreaking as, say, Green Day, who did everything The Offspring did ten times better. But while Green Day were busy celebrating the life of a slacker, The Offspring took aim at American foibles with songs like “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” and the indicting “The Kids Aren’t Alright”. It’s easy to lose those attacks in the larger picture, since The Offspring are more interested in good times than they are changing the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that The Offspring dealt with some heavy stuff far before their American Idiot brethren did. Overall Americana offers some fun songs in singles like “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” and “Staring at the Sun”. Dexter Holland’s voice is pretty good, but what makes it work rests in the ubiquitous harmonizing “whoa”s that accompany several tracks. Musically…well, it’s punk rock in the vein of The Ramones and the other greats, for better and for worse. It’s loud, it’s kinda fun, but it’s far from new or very exciting. At the end of the day, Americana deserves every ounce of respect and admiration it got, maybe a little more for its ambition, but no one will hold it against you if you just remember the one or two singles.

The Offspring – The Kids Aren’t Alright [iTunes] (YSI)

==TJ==