Dr Dexter and Mr Holland

Image copyright www.stickerchick.com

 

The Offspring are one of those bands that, over the years, have juggernauted their way to a legendary status within the rock music community. Even today, when their immediate popularity has begun to wane with the decline in popularity of the pop-punk genre since the mid 2000s, their name alone gets them top (or near-top) billing at festivals worldwide, and they can still effortlessly sell out even the largest venues.

 

However, unlike bands that they shared the pop-punk limelight with such as Green Day, they haven't catapulted themselves to megastardom by fundamentally changing their sound. The way they got there was actually through a very cunning ploy that many don't realise.

The Offspring, are in fact, two bands. Of course, I don't mean literally. In fact, since their initial self-titled album release in 1989, the only band role to have seen different members is the drums, making them one of the most personnel consistent bands of the last 30 years.

What I actually mean is that they are a band that is very good at showing to similar, but distinctly different, sides to their musical ability.

Their first release, and its 1992 follow-up 'Ignition' met little commercial success, at least in their initial runs. Their debut album didn't even receive a CD release until 1995, after they stormed to mainstream success with 1994's 'Smash'.

If you listen to these, and other early recordings, you hear some excellent punk rock revival records, but neither of them possess a lot of mainstream appeal. With 'Smash', however, you can instantly hear the Offspring developing their sound to encompass a more mainstream-acceptable pop element to some of their songs, whilst maintaining their punk rock credentials.

Singles such as 'Come Out and Play' and 'Self Esteem' showcase a realisation by the band that in order to draw people in and warm them to the idea of listening to the band play the songs they want to play, perhaps they have to present a more acceptable face in the public eye.

In 1994, when 'Smash' was released, pure punk rock was still a few years away from being a truly socially acceptable genre of music, and bands like the Offspring, Green Day and Blink 182 (all of whose early albums had a solid punk ethic behind them) had to soften themselves up a bit in order to be accepted.

They key thing, however, was that the singles, which would receive much more widespread consumption through radio play than the album itself, were not necessarily representative of the content of the album. In the radio-friendly singles, a more upbeat, almost 'silly' tone (more on that later) was key, whereas many of the album tracks were serious punk rock songs that really showcased the songwriting talent that the band possessed.

The trend continues on 1996's 'Ixnay on the Hombre' with single releases like 'I Choose' and 'All I Want' masking what was in many respects a very serious and heartfelt record. However, without these singles to draw in the masses, it's unlikely that the album would have reached the audiences that it did.

The best examples of the band's recording style comes on their next two albums, 'Americana' and 'Conspiracy of One'. Anyone who turned on a radio or TV music station between 1997 and the present will almost inevitably have come across one or more of the singles from those albums. 'Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)', 'Why Don't You Get a Job?', 'The Kids Aren't Alright' and 'Original Prankster' were worldwide smash hits and truly cemented the band's status as one of the hottest properties of the late 90s and early 2000s. Sadly it has lead many to dismiss the band out of hand as 'silly' (as mentioned above) and thus irrelevant in general, but to dismiss the influence they have had over rock music in general would be foolish.

The tendency towards light-hearted humour in their singles obviously caused the band to be grouped together with other similar artists from the time. Bands like Blink 182, Green Day and Sum 41 were all famous for releasing similarly 'irreverent' music at this time. For example, Green Day's 'Basket Case', Sum 41's 'Fat Lip' and a good deal of Blink 182's 1999 album 'Enema of the State' are all prime examples of the popularity during this period (at least with teenage boys who enjoy fart jokes) of that kind of 'college punk'.

As I have mentioned, it is easy to dismiss bands like this, the Offspring included, as one dimensional, but the key thing to note about the list I just made, or at the very least the albums that they come from, is that they still stand up as records today over a decade later.

You only have to listen to songs like 'Not the One' (from 'Smash', 'Pay the Man' (from Americana) 'Amazed' and 'Change the World' (from 'Ixnay on the Hombre') to realise that this is a band with many layers too it, and that they and the records I have mentioned are certainly more than the sum of their singles.

That isn't to say, of course, that they aren't prone to the odd bout of silliness in the albums too; you only need to hear 'Intermission' once to testify to that. But, you definitely can't say that they haven't earned the right to be a bit daft every once in a while. Also, even when they do choose to do so, and especially on the singles, you can still hear the punk rock heart of the band shining through. It's always there, whether it's in a dose small enough to be widely acceptable, or more full on in a less well known track.

Finally, and one of the key things that separates the Offspring from the like of Green Day is that the band you hear on record today is still the band that broke through with 'Smash' in 1994. Obviously during a near 20 year period a band is going to develop its sound somewhat, but the core of the original Offspring releases is still there all these years later. They haven't felt the need to ditch the punk sound that so characterised their releases in the 90s and become a band they aren't.

The Offspring is the Offspring. Except when they're being the Offspring. If you see what I mean...