770. The Offspring - Smash (1994)

Track Listing

1. Time to Relax
2. Nitro (Youth Energy)
3. Bad Habit
4. Gotta Get Away
5. Genocide
6. Something to Believe In
7. Come Out and Play
8. Self-Esteem
9. It'll Be a Long Time
10. Killboy Powerhead
11. What Happened to You?
12. So Alone
13. Not the One
14. Smash

Review

Is it better to burn out or to fade away? In 1994 that sentence was used more often in conjunction with another guy, but it is also applicable to the career of The Offspring. So here you have what was the biggest selling Indie album in history, and they never did anything good again.

This album, however, is another story. For those of us born in the early 80s, The Offspring was probably the first contact we had with something resembling Punk, early childhood was full of New Wave and then we had grunge. Smash was the first big album to actually bring a certain punkish attitude to our lives, quickly followed by Green Day's Dookie and then endless crap.

Fortunately this is a great album. Each and every single track is a possible single, with the actual singles being a lot of fun, and in the case of Self-Esteem painfully insightful when you are in the 12 to 16 bracket. So, yeah it is music for that bracket, but they go at it with gusto, and it is one of the funner albums to cross this list in 1994. I really like it. Offspring, should have died in a plane crash after this however, as from Ixnay on the Hombre onwards they never did anything comparable to Smash, simply becoming a parody of themselves.

Track Highlights

1. Self-Esteem
2. Come Out and Play
3. Bad Habit
4. What Happened to You?

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Since its release in 1994, Smash has proved to be a seller over time, moving over 6,000,000 in the US alone and being certified six times platinum by the RIAA. By 2008, the same year the album was remastered, it had sold over 16,000,000 copies worldwide. Many consider this to be The Offspring's most successful album to date. Despite its massive commercial success, it is not The Offspring's highest charting album on Billboard 200, peaking at #4; their fifth album Americana would hit #2 in 1998. Smash also sold well outside the US, particularly in Australia, where it debuted #1 on the ARIA Charts for three weeks in 1995.

Self Esteem: