1244. The Offspring / Smash. 1994. 4/5

If you meet anyone who said that they knew of The Offspring prior to the release of their third studio album “Smash", then they would fit into one of two groups. Either this person stumbled across one of their earlier releases through an obscure occasional acquaintance who only listened to bands that no one knew about until they got big, at which point they disowned them and moved on to some even more outrageously obscure speck of a band... or they are a liar. Because there is no way that you could have imagined that anyone would have COULD HAVE COME ACROSS a copy of either their self-titled debut album or the follow up “Ignition” prior to hearing and probably buying and digesting “Smash” for months on end, and then really wanting more of the band to experience. Absolutely, I was one of those people – not the ones who claimed to know the band before this album, just the one that bought the other two albums on the back of buying this. So I say again, my contention is that no one knew The Offspring before this album, and certainly not in Australia. Then the first single was released from this album, it got played for months on just about every radio station across the nation, and the beginning of the tsunami wave had begun.
The riders of the wave were the new punk-inspired bands like The Offspring. Green Day had released their seminal album “Dookie” just two months prior, and between them these two bands began to dominate the airwaves with their post-grunge reanimated punk pop music that grabbed the attention and the minds of the youth of the time. Add to this bands such as Hole with their album “Live Through This”, Bad Religion with “Stranger Than Fiction”, and Rancid with “Let’s Go”, the teenagers that had been hypnotised by grunge were now becoming the twenty-somethings that wanted something with a bit more rebellion, something they could jump around to and pump their fist at, something that could be the outlet for the rage rather than a railing for their moodiness. Each of these bands were able to harness that through these particular albums at this time. Arguably however, it was “Smash” that grabbed that attention the most fiercely, and through the airplay of the three singles directed that into album sales, where those same people found an even greater barrel of riches awaiting them.

For me, the songs on this album can be split into two categories, the fast tracks and the groove tracks, moderated by the tempo at which the songs come out at you. For me, the better songs on this album are the upbeat, up tempo, fast paced tracks, that really lock into that beat that gets people moving, whether physically on the dance floor or violently thrashing around in their chair while drinking their favourite alcoholic beverage. The opening track “Nitro (Youth Energy)”, as the title suggests is definitely one of those tracks. As an opening song, it casts the album in its best light from the outset, letting everyone who has just put on this CD what they are going to get. “Bad Habit” trends in the same direction, with energy rather than out and out speed the best quality of the song. The overt use of language towards the end of the song, which builds to a shout as the music suddenly disappears and is left as the only sound coming out of the speakers, is very effective in both proving the point that the lyrics are taking and for offending anyone who believes that swearing is not an avenue that should be taking in the musical arts. Fuck the lot of them, I say! “Genocide” is perhaps my favourite song of this category, driven by the forceful 2/4 beat of Ron Welty’s terrific drumming, barely halting for breath along the way apart from the steady break in the middle of the song. No mucking around on this song, it flies along with eminently singable lyrics and that fun Dexter implying vocal that often masks the real meaning of the lyrics. The other great example is “Killboy Powerhead”, a great track at top speed, Ron’s drum and cymbal work powering the song and high-octane vocals. Great song. Then there is the out and out punk track “So Alone” that could easily have been performed in the late 1970’s, though with less precision in the instruments and more English accent in the vocals.
The three singles from the album are the best example of the groove element of the album. “Gotta Get Away” settles into a really beautiful riff in the mid-tempo and allowing Dexter’s vocals to croon over the top without a change of either intensity or drive. “Come Out and Play” does the same by following Ron’s hard-hitting drumbeat, groove guitar riff and Dexter’s loudly explored vocals makes this another great and easy song to sing along with the volume turned up to 11. This is then followed by “Self Esteem” which became arguably the most popular single released off the album, one that I still enjoy but for me has been the lesser of the three. That is also possibly from the number of people who grabbed the band from this track, without knowing any other songs on the album. That kind of thing annoyed me as a teenager, and as a twenty-something... and still does today. “It’ll Be a Long Time” pulls along in the same wake, with faster start into the mid-tempo middle and the faster conclusion, while “What Happened to You” and “Not the One” both travel the same trajectory.
The final soaring conclusion of the title track is a perfectly wonderful ending to the album, with Dexter’s soulful vocals soaring along to provide the concluding track that this album deserves.

1995 is not a year that I recall with any fondness whatsoever. It was a fucked up period of my life, one where I didn’t handle the ups and downs of my life with any clear or organised thought processes. As I have mentioned in other episodes, music was one of the only saving graces of that year, and some albums were grafted onto my psyche as a result. “Smash” was one of them. I bought this album along with four or five others in one hit, but it was a year after its release. I knew the singles from the radio, but I had never felt the urge to actually buy the album. The difficulty of my personal circumstances in 1995 changed that and I grabbed onto it like a life preserver. The album grabbed me almost immediately, and much like another album reviewed earlier in this season, Therapy’s “Troublegum”, it became the soother of the raging torrent that was swirling around me. We all have those albums, the ones that are a port in that storm, and “Smash” acted as that for me.
In the years since, I haven’t really pulled it out very often to listen to. The albums that followed, like “Ixnay on the Hombre”, “Americana” and “Conspiracy of One” were The Offspring albums that I listened to a hell of a lot more than this one. Did it being tied to this time of my life make it less accessible for me in the years following? It’s a fair question and not one I have an answer for, beyond the fact that I do love those other three albums a lot. But certainly, having had this back in the rotation for the last three weeks or so, I can assess that I really should have listened to this earlier and more than I have over the years. To me it still stands up, and it is difficult to reconcile that it is 30 years old, because it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I was listening to this often and constantly.
This was the massive breakthrough album for The Offspring, and they have barely looked back since. Commercial success and fan success over the years has often been a bone of contention, but what hasn’t changed is the excellence of their output. Alternative rock, or punk rock, whatever you want to call it, this album was one of the forerunner of the first genres to break out of the dominance grunge had held on the music business for the past three years, and is still as important 30 years later as it was on its release.

1148. The Offspring / Ixnay on the Hombre. 1997. 4.5/5

When Smash had been released and that first single “Come Out and Play” had been released and was tsunamied on radio airplay, it encouraged me to go out and buy the album. And, I loved it. Played it to death. Knew all the words, which even by that time of my life was becoming a novelty time did not always allow. And I think it is significant that the band was not an overnight sensation. Sure, most people who got into the band did so on that Smash album and felt as though they had come out of nowhere, but they had already been together for ten years prior to it, and had also released albums before this, so the sound they came out with was one they had been curating for some time. It was a unique one, with high octane vocals, energetic guitars and drums, and that infusion of a modernised punk and alternative sound that provided a counter punch to the end days of grunge and the beginnings of industrial metal.When it came to the release of their follow up album, because of the success of Smash and having signed for a major label the band not only had a recording studio available to them for a stretch of time they had more time available in which to write and record. Probably the biggest question going into this album, certainly from my own perspective as a one-album fan, was in what direction the new songs would go. Because the music world was still fluxing, and sometimes the success of an album can influence the next one in ways that don’t always work. Given the commercial success would the band look to go further down that lie with their songs, or would they stick to their roots and perhaps further the songs in a modern punk style. It was a three year gap between albums, enough time during the 1990’s for the popular music style to have changed completely. Which it had. And yet the best bands were able to find a way to negotiate that and keep themselves relevant. Ixnay on the Hombre managed to do that.

The Offspring began a trend of theirs with monologues on their albums, and what better way to open an album that to have the legendary Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedy’s fame doing so to open their new album. “Disclaimer” perfectly sums up the attitude of band when it comes to the “Parental Advisory” stickers than some bands were forced to have on their CDs because of some of the language used or the subject matter of the lyrics of certain songs. A perfect riposte delivered by one of the best in the business.
The album then kicks off for real with the brilliant “The Meaning of Life”, setting the tone for the album to come. Now for me, what makes this album is the groove that comes from the track list. The songs come at you at different tempos and somewhat different styles, but it is the groove of the album that connects it all together. The faster tempo of the opening tracks “The Meaning of Life” and “Mota” still flow nicely and uninterrupted into the next level of “Me and My Old Lady” and “Cool to Hate” because of the terrific groove created by Ron Welty’s drums and Greg K’s brilliant bass lines, still for me the absolute highlights of the album. The bass guitar dominates every song, not only creating the base around which each song is constructed but then leading the song’s direction. Most of the attention comes from Dexter Holland’s unique vocal abilities along with Noodles great backing and harmony vocals, and their great partnership on guitars, but for me it is the bass that has been the best aspect of the majority of the songs here since its release. Then the terrific tempo change in the middle of “Cool to Hate”, still one of my favourite Offspring songs, and the lyrics throughout… I wish this song had been written when I was at school, it would have been my anthem. I’m sure it was for so many who were at school when this album was released.
Then you have the two main singles off the album, which although I still enjoy to this day are not really the best songs on the album, and to me that usually coincides with the ultimate strength of the album, the fact that the songs released for radio airplay to garner popularity of the masses are actually not even the best songs of the album itself. “Gone Away” and “All I Want” definitely sit in this bracket, songs that are good to listen to but if I’m gong to watch The Offspring there are probably five other songs on the album I’d rather hear first. And then there is the superb closing track, four and a half minutes long just to prove that they are capable of extending themselves, without losing their intensity and hard core fist pumping and fist shaking at the world.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times here, and probably will again when it comes to other albums released in this era, how music it was a changin’ around this time. The bands that I had grown up with had changed their own style, mostly not for the better, though I continued to listen to them and their albums. But I was also discovering other bands who were coming into their own and releasing albums that became iconic once they had had time to grow on their audience. And I firmly believe that Ixnay on the Hombre is one of those albums. Smash had broken the band worldwide, and future releases Americana and Conspiracy of One perpetuated their popularity and genre hopping ability. But here on Ixnay on the Hombre is where the band really proved that it could cross thread between an alternative styled post modern punk that drew from the fast paced short styled hard hitting lyrical songs with the commercial popularity that saw radio airplay dominated and album sales climb, all the while creating a fan base that crossed over into several different eras.
All of that is a mouthful, and perhaps over-exclaims or complicates just what this album is able to achieve. And, of course, there will be people who will disagree. But I find everything about this album to be top shelf. If you want thoughtful lyrics banging on about topics that were at the hearts of the bands target audience at the time of its release, you’ve got it. C’mon – the meaning of life, hating school, life and death, positive thoughts on being alive…. Its all there in the lyrical outtake. All of this pumped along by terrific music driven by the high velocity guitars and held together by that cranking rhythm of bass and drums, and vocals that encourage you to sing along at the top of your voice.

Everything about this album works. It gets you moving, it gets the blood pumping. You can listen to it at home in your armchair, you can crank it at a party to get it livened up. For me there were some other brilliant albums released in 1997. This one still remains near the top of the list of those releases. It’s the album that to me proved that The Offspring was not a one-hit wonder, it was a band that was here for the long term and had the skill, talent and ability to make it a long term contribution. History has proven that to be the case, and having revisited this album a lot over the past week to celebrate its 25th anniversary, I’m back again for the long haul.

1115. The Offspring / Let the Bad Times Roll. 2021. 3.5/5

Any time that a band that is as universally admired and loved as The Offspring was during the 1990’s and through the 2000’s that then finds itself in a lull of some years in regards to new material being released, will necessarily have questions asked of it. Even when you look at the story, and discover the legal problems that required fixing, the loss of their recording contract, the change of personnel within and around the band, and finally a pandemic that delayed the eventual release of their new material by almost 18 months, it is hard to fathom that there was a nine year wait between albums. That’s Metallica-like, though with the depreciating returns from album sales to artists it is becoming a more routine thing. Eventually though, after various writing and recording spurts and a final waiting call due to Covid19, we have the new Offspring album in our hands, titled Let the Bad Times Roll.

From the outset this is an album that lyrically is following a similar pattern to voicing how the world was witnessing the mood within the United States in particular over the past four years, if not longer. The vocals may not be as belligerently hostile as they were with the band 25 years ago, but there’s little doubt in the words exactly what they are saying. Lyrics such as these from the opening track, “This is Not Utopia” - “These dying streets are bruised and beaten, and riot flags are waving, poor and weak, we extend this streak, these lives we could be saving”. Even the title gives away the band’s thoughts on their home country – and this was recorded BEFORE what happened in the US during 2020. There’s a lot more material there just from those 12 months. This then leads into the title track, “Let the Bad Times Roll” – which musically at least to me is so much like a Fall Out Boy song. Lyrically and visually however it continues down the same path as the album opener, this time focusing on the fevered supporters of the former US President, with hard-hitting and relevant lyrics such as “Mexicans and blacks and Jews, got it all figured out for you, gonna build a wall let you decide, apathy or suicide”. No holds barred there, from the lead single released from the album a few weeks ago.

The songs become a bit more melancholy with “Behind Your Walls” and into “Army of One”. The Offspring have done these kinds of songs before (see “Self Esteem” and “Gone Away”), but “Behind Your Walls” lacks the same kind of massive angst and powerful music behind it that other songs of the genre hold. “Army of One” has much more in common with typical Offspring tracks, a great up-tempo push with positive spin on the lyrics, closer to what they are renown for. “Breaking These Bones” comes with an even more morbid observation on break ups... I mean, I know Taylor Swift has made a career out of writing songs on break ups, but is an angsty song by a band with members in their mid-50's just pushing that a little too far? Maybe it is me that is just too old, and songs like these aren’t aimed at me at all (no kidding Grandpa...).
“Coming to You” is one of the older songs appearing here, having first been played live back in 2015. If you are looking for the atypical Offspring song on this album, then this is where you come to. A jiving beat, lyrics that are alternately spitting yet amusing, and all with that great vocal quality of fun yet drive.
I still don’t know how to take “We Never Have Sex Anymore”. Is it comedy or serious or pisstake? The horns section comes in throughout, giving this a completely different feel to every other song on the album – that “big band” feeling with the trombones and trumpets and clarinet and saxophone. Does anyone else remember Helloween doing a brass version of their great song “Dr Stein” for their best of album “Unarmed”? Yeah, that’s how awkward I feel about this song. It’s the pisstake song of the album, the one that comes closest to being the track you sing like “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” and “Why Don’t You Get a Job”, but without the real fun usually involved. Though teenagers may get a kick out of it.

“The Opioid Diaries” and “Hassan Chop” are the two songs that should have combined as the album closers, and are as bombastic lyrically as the opening two tracks. “The Opioid Diaries” is where the band opens up and channels their finer alt punk moments, fast and furious musically and lyrically and hard hitting at the pharmaceutical companies. This is one of the best songs on the album. And then “Hassan Chop” continues the drilling pace and flows without favour on religious wars being waged, with both sides claiming that their God helps them win. Once again, both of these songs lyrics leave nothing to the imagination, fear no favour, and give their fans listening something to consider beyond the songs themselves.
While that should have been the close of the album, it is instead completed by a piano ballad version of their hit song “Gone Away”, followed by the acoustic “Lullaby”, which acts as a reprise of the chorus of the title track. Perhaps everyone involved felt it best to finish on this quiet note after the hard core of what preceded it, but personally I feel it acts as a slight letdown to the thoughtful songs that came before it.

When I first listened to the album, I was not overly enamoured. The kind of fast paced and in-your-face attitude that the band’s music gave us on albums such as Smash and Ixnay on the Hombre has been toned down, doubtless in the main because they were 25 years ago and musicians and bands and individuals all change over that lengthy period of time. But in many ways even the energy that flowed through Americana and Conspiracy of One isn’t quite as apparent here on Let the Bad Times Roll. And as I can appreciate with all bands with such a lengthy time span, that is a similar story. There is also the problem that nine years have passed since the release of Days Go By, and with the problems that have met the band at every turn during that time, it isn’t such a surprise that things get changed up, and that maybe some of the spark gets lost in the mix. And no band can ever be condemned for wanting to try some different ideas in their song writing.

But I shouldn’t focus on the past, I should be looking at the present. And in a world that would appear ready to explode with new recorded material, all composed and recorded during a year when there was little else to do but to observe the world as it is and write about it, Let the Bad Times Roll may well be at the forefront of that movement. The fact that these songs were composed before 2020 started is interesting, because most of the subjects the songs here are about were probably more relevant last year than before that. In essence, this album actually shows that of all the political and activism problems that blew up in 2020, they all had a base well before the year of the pandemic arrived. In a current historical sense, that could be seen to be eye opening.
For all of its less exciting moments, all mostly within the middle of the album, they are bookended by some excellent ripostes by a band that, although they had never gone away, still managed to release what may yet be considered as the comeback album of the year by the time we get to December 2021. And in the current world of music, that’s not a bad thing at all.

Rating: "Because our God is righteous, and yours the one to blame". 3.5/5

529. The Offspring / Ignition. 1992. 2/5

When I saw this in the local record store I got very excited and bought it immediately. It wasn’t until I was perusing the cover when I got home that I realised that it wasn’t the new album from The Offspring, it was in fact an earlier album that I wasn’t aware even existed. This was back in 1995, after I had devoured Smash to its limit, and was looking from more from the band.
OK, I thought, let’s give it a whirl. I put it on, played it a few times, and lost interest in it. To me, it wasn’t what I had come to love from the band, and I wasn’t taking to it. It went back into the CD cupboard, and fell into a dark recess.

Fast forward to 2008, and it makes its reappearance for this long winded review process. Ignoring the thoughts of thirteen years ago, I put it on with an open mind and an interest in the outcome.

Now there is no doubt who the band is. It is very much the musical and vocal style of The Offspring. However, even after half a dozen listens to the album, it still isn’t grabbing me. I can’t even really pin point what it is that doesn’t do it for me. Is it that there just isn’t enough ‘oomph’ in the songs, or is it just that because I came into the band (like so many others) on Smash that I can’t quite make the transition back to the earlier material? Really, I’m not sure. The one thing I do know is that I find this to be only average, and not the above-average stuff they did for the next three or four albums.

Rating: Still unable to like it much after all these years. 2/5.

522. The Offspring / I Choose [Single]. 1997. 3.5/5

This was the final single from the Ixnay on the Hombre album.
Containing the title song, it also mixes another song from the album, “Mota”, along with a live version of “All I Want”.

Rating: Average enough for the time. 3.5/5

183. The Offspring / Conspiracy Of One. 2000. 4/5.

The Offspring continue with their consistent album releases with this album. Continuing in the same vein as their previous three albums, Conspiracy Of One combines their punk roots with hard rock speed, and a touch of humour to top it all off.

The lads have been very good once again in their ability to fuse a hit single, a couple of anthems, and other various arrangements, into the one album without detracting from each other. No doubt most fans of the band are pleased with their ability to do this so well. Over the years, without compromising their style, they have managed to win over fans of all persuasions, something that must be extremely difficult to do.

Favourites for me from the album include Come Out Swinging, Original Prankster and Million Miles Away.

Rating : Still on a roll. 4/5.

62. The Offspring / Americana. 1998. 4/5.

The Offspring may not have exploded on the scene when they released their first two albums, but with their third album “Smash” and then its follow up “Ixnay on the Hombre”, the episode of which you can relive on Season 2 of this podcast, the band not only had hit singles but had found their marketplace, and an audience waiting to hear what they had to say and how they would deliver it.
On “Ixnay on the Hombre”, The Offspring had taken a couple of leaps out of their comfort zone, ones that not only allowed them to grow out of that pure post-punk style that had graced their previous album and given them a road also into the alt rock sound that bands were beginning to utilise. While some fans were disappointed, probably because they were looking for a “Smash 2” rather than the next development of an Offspring album, that album gave the band more scope to spread their wings.
Dexter Holland, who is the primary composer for the band, was quoted in Rolling Stone in August 1998, "I wanted to write a record that wasn't a radical departure from what we've done before. I feel like we have managed to change stuff up from “Ignition” to “Smash” to “Ixnay”. We're in a place where we more or less set the boundaries where we can do a lot of stuff without having to stretch it out farther”.
A little over a week before this album was released, the band had put out their first single, “Pretty Fly for a White Guy”. Along with the catchiness of the track, the music video also caught the attention of the music loving world, and was soon number one in a dozen countries around the world, and drove the interest in the band’s new album to new highs. Given the goofiness of the video yet the biting commentary of the lyrics, it couldn't’ have been a better lead in for an album that was about to storm the charts on the back of this success.

What comes across the most on “Americana” is that even though the subject matter being sung about is not always the most uplifting or positive or happy, the music and the way the songs are sung makes them entertaining and not morose. Because if you delve deeper into the lyrics of “Have You Ever” and “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, these songs in particular could be extremely dark and depressing. Given a whole different mood by the music they could be mood killers – terrific commentary on the world as the band and Dexter in particular sees through their eyes, but not as wonderfully embracing as they are. The dark matter that the songs address could have been accompanied by moody long drawn-out music, harping on the negative aspects of the lyrics and while perhaps still being excellent songs, just leaving the listener in a depressed or even angry mood.
But when you listen to “Americana”, you don’t come away in that way at all. That wonderful punk-influenced hard paced track style that comes across so perfectly with “Have You Ever”, “Staring at the Sun”, “The Kids Aren’t Alright” and “The End of the Line” in particular is what becomes the main focus of the mood of the track rather than the lyrical content, until they merge and become one, and the songs become eminently enjoyable. Classic even. A perfect amalgamation of lyric topicality and angsty music.
“The Kids Aren’t Alright” in particular is arguably the band’s masterpiece and is relatable to just about everyone in life. The dreams of youth, locked in your safe world that is your neighbourhood, and then going back years later to discover what everyone had become and finding that it isn’t all peaches and cream, and that life outside of the days of high school become a different challenge than you would ever have expected. This could have been a depressing song, and if you just read the lyrics, it is a sad story. But put it with the terrific guitar riff, and the fast pace, and the wonderful vocals from Holland who gives enough emotion to make it clear it isn’t a happy story, but keeps it up-tempo and jumping to make you forget that and just enjoy the song, is pretty special. Holland was quoted as saying that the song was inspired and derived by a trip back to his hometown, where “The neighbourhood looks like Happy Days, but it’s really Twin Peaks”. And the song shines a light on that. You grow up hoping you and your friends are going to have a successful and happy life, but reality doesn’t always go that way.
Listening to the album, it is clear that it has become a social statement on the world as the band saw it, and in particular America, thus the title of the album. Each song is almost its own self-contained short story in a book of short stories that becomes the album. “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” and “She’s Got Issues” are pointed in their barbs but with that tinge of humour that keeps them light. On the other hand, the opening of “Have You Ever” and “Staring at the Sun” are shooting straight from the hip, firing shots at society and the way it breaks down at the slightest sign of people standing up for their rights. “Walla Walla” talks about not only crime being punished by being sent to jail, but the lax convictions that just encourage the same people to do the same crime over and over again without being made to truly pay for it. “The End of the Line” and “No Brakes” both deal with the onset of death in different ways. And the title track riles against middle class America and form it has taken. And of course there is the major single hit from the album, “Pretty Fly for a White Guy”, which pokes fun at the teens and twenties who will do anything for what they see as popularity, not realising that it is ridicule they are receiving instead.

I loved “Ixnay on the Hombre” when it was released. One of the perfect albums for me at that time of my life. It was played to death, and it was the angst and segregated anger of that album that made it so perfect for me. So when “Americana” was released, and my life had changed again (this time for the better) I did wonder if I would find the same things at that point of my life as I had with that previous album. The answer indeed was a resounding yes. Because by then I was in my late 20’s, and was seeing more and being affected more by what was happening around me, and seeing and feeling the influences of things like lifestyle and political ramifications and the changes in people's attitudes to life and the surrounding areas where I was living at the time. Yes, sure, I was becoming more adamant and steadfast in my own thoughts, and was happy to start publicising that more than I had. And “Americana” spoke to me in that way through the lyrics. I was trying to work out just what the world was trying to do, and I was then trying to work out WHY it was doing what it was. And most of what The Offspring threw at me through their lyrics on this album was the same as what I was thinking on all of those subjects. So yes “Americana” spoke to me.
But more than that, the music perfectly framed those songs, and the lyrics they contained. The band framed a song so that you could sing it with anger and frustration in your voice, but it wasn’t the way the band actually performed it. It was just the way I interpreted it and allowed how I felt to come through in the enjoyment of the songs. They also framed a song so you could be emotional about the content and allow that to come through in how you heard and sang the song, but again it wasn’t the way it was performed, it just allowed your interpretation of what you were feeling to come through. And to me, that has always been the genius of the album. This is, for all intents and purposes, mostly a punk rock album, and that inspiration that is the fast paced hard clocking songs is what makes The Offspring at their best. Sure, there is the Latino flavoured comedy infused big selling single, and the very Beatles-ish style of their second single (listen to “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" and then “Why Don’t You Get a Job” and you’ll hear what I mean), but mostly this is punk inspired rock with lyrics that shake their fist at authority and the state of the world, and that’s why it was so good when it was released, and still so relevant in the modern day. And why The Offspring are still so necessary.