5. The Offspring - Smash 1994
Well this release smashed (yup, I went there) the third album curse in devastating style. In 1994, something weird happened. Californian Punk Rock became big business. That year saw the release of 'Dookie' by Green Day, 'Stranger Than Fiction' by Bad Religion and 'Punk In Drublic' by NOFX. These albums have all never been matched commercially by their writers and never will be. No one really knows why this explosion of Skate-Punk/Pop-Punk took off in that year, but one thing is for sure, the quality of each of these releases had something to do with it. Also released, by four long haired skater/surfer dudes from Orange County, that year was the daddy of them all, 'Smash'. This album is still the biggest selling record ever put out by an independent record label, it currently sits at 16 million units shifted, worldwide. That is a ridiculous amount of records by anyones standards, not to mention these snot-nosed adrenaline heads. The label, Epitaph records, (owned by Bad Religion's guitar player, Brett Gurewitz) actually couldn't make enough copies to supply the demand for a good period of time after release. They
even had to rent more warehouse space in downtown L.A. to house the dozens of pallets of tape, CD and vinyl copies of the record. The release itself is such a shot to the arm and it still sounds as fresh as a daisy almost twenty years later! The huge singles, 'Self Esteem', 'Come Out and Play' and 'Gotta Get Away' are all full of Southern Californian Punk Rock melodies and attitude, but it is on the album tracks that the really special material can be heard. Opener 'Nitro', makes the laziest slacker want to grab his deck and tear up his neighborhoods streets. 'Genocide', has such a memorable lead line that acts as the songs hook that you just cannot get it out of your mind, until you go out of your mind and have to listen, again and again. The band also turn their hand at some modern Ska-Punk with the quirky, 'What Happened To You'. The album isn't boneheaded at all though, with topics being, for the most part, pretty dark and hopeless, delivered from an average, Californian kid's point of view. That, after all was what they were at the time. They touch on such subjects as, victimization, gun crime, depression, pollution and other socio-political hot buttons.
The magic is in their choice of chord progressions. Not complicated at all but with just enough nous about them to stir the emotions and give you that feeling that only Skate-Punk can. It is aggression, adrenaline and strong melody all dealt with, speed and urgency. Dexter Hollands one-of-a-kind voice is the bands ace card though. He has just has the perfect tone and range for this type of attack. Although they would make some fantastic records after 'Smash', they have never managed to sound as hungry and discontented as they did here. Maybe because after this record, they all became very, very rich.