The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

The Offspring

[#] Smash (1994)

Smash hit? Smashing things? Yes.

Reviewed January 18, 2022

(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read my first impressions, or read on for how they might have changed.)

"Open the glovebox/Reach inside/Gonna wreck this fucker's ride/Guess I got a bad habit"—The Offspring understand better than anyone that punk is best served neurotic and nerve-frayed. Smash's kind of metal-edged maniac music was instrumental in breaking skate punk to a huge audience in the mid 90s, resulting in Epitaph's top-selling album to date, The Offspring becoming international stars, and gigantic radio hits like the careening emotional abuse singalong "Self Esteem", the anxious churn of "Gotta Get Away", and the slinky exploration of gang violence "Come Out and Play" ("you gotta keep 'em separated!"). Listen to that sultry narrator between tracks and drink it all in: this is music for the soul. The really fucked up soul.

The same way you can't imagine Bad Religion songs sung by anyone other than Greg Graffin, Dexter Holland's manic barks, yipes, and shrieks perfectly embody the characters from the shitty part of town he sings about, while their buzzsaw guitars and SWAT raid drums build their world around them. The successes aren't confined to the singles either! Opener "Nitro" plays like there really is no tomorrow, and "Genocide" is perhaps the most barreling tune on the whole album. The only real downside is that the songs do get noticeably weaker towards the end of the album, as the band had to finish four songs in their final two nights of recording, and it shows. Could be worse though—could be writing novelty pop punk songs!

Essential:	"Bad Habit", "Genocide", "Self Esteem"
Quintessential:	"Nitro (Youth Energy)"
Non-Essential:	"Not the One"
Rating:
Further listening:	Smash's Rediscovering entry