Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! It’s been a long while! I’ve missed this. It’s time to run it again. This time around, I’m really going to try to do one of these a day, at least for a year and check back on my progress come August 2024. So let’s start with my all-time favorite album, The Offspring’s - Smash. So back when this album came out, CDs weren’t even the thing yet. We were still mostly listening to cassettes. I was 11, when this album came out and my brother was 16. My brother listened to rap and rock. So, naturally, like most young brothers, I decided I wanted to listen to the music he listened to. Luckily for me my parents didn’t sugar coat things too much and they let us listen to profane lyrics, regardless of what the parental advisory sticker said. Big mistake and let me tell you why. I was a weird kid. Not like eating glue weird, but I had a strange obsession with profanity. I loved saying bad words when I could get away with it and when I heard them, I would always laugh.
So one day my parents left me home while they ran to the grocery store and my brother was at a friends house. I was straight up Kevin McAllister for two hours. My mom had just purchased a brand new state of the art cassette stereo playing system and I got this strange idea. I was going to blast track number two and put the speakers up to the front door so the whole neighborhood could hear “Bad Habit”. So I set everything up and set the music to blast. When the part came on I wanted everyone to hear, I opened the window and proceeded to scream the words along with the song. “You stupid, dumb shit, Goddamn motherfucker!”. It was classic. I closed up shop in about 3 seconds after. It was a wonderful moment in time and to this day, I still don’t know if anyone ever heard my 2 minutes of glory. Let’s go into why else I love this album.
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Track 1 - Time To Relax (Intro)
This might be one of the most instantly recognizable opening tracks in 90’s rock music. Whenever I hear this it’s like a battle cry to get ready to rock the fuck out. It never ceases to fire me up, because I know EXACTLY what’s next. JW getting rowdy, that’s what.
5/5
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Track 2 - Nitro (Youth Energy)
One of my all time favorite intros to a CD leads straight into one of the most hyper head banging tracks of the 90’s. Noodles guitar riffs on this song are amazing and when that lead comes in… Honestly it might be my favorite lead guitar part of the 90’s. This song is fucking incredible.
5/5
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Track 3 - Bad Habit
So here we are. Hahahah. This song. Where do you even begin? It obviously wasn’t a radio hit but if you know who The Offspring is, you’d be pretty hard pressed NOT to know about this song. Once again, but with the bass this time, this song is INSTANTLY recognizable within the first three notes. That shit’s impressive.
5/5
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Track 4 - Gotta Get Away
Another instantly recognizable track. One of three radio hits from this album I believe. The Offspring really had a special formula when writing and recording these songs. This song is so good, you still hear it once or twice a day on local radio stations across the world.
5/5
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Track 5 - Genocide
This track has always been my favorite track off of Smash. The raw energy of this song pumps me up every time and instantly transforms me back into 11 year old me. I miss the 90’s a lot and music is one of the biggest reasons why. If I could only recommend you lot listen to one track, this is the one.
5/5
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Track 6 - Something To Believe In
One of the lines of lyrics in this song reads, “Do you accept, what you are told, without even thinking?”. This album was deep as fuck and songs like this really showed it off. So many bands are influenced by Dexter’s thoughts on the government and his influence still can be heard now. I do this weird thing where I will call different bands the children of an influential band. To me, The Offspring are OG. Children of them would be a band like Rise Against. You can definitely hear those kinds of vibes in their music because of songs like this. Still flawless.
Track 5 - Genocide
This track has always been my favorite track off of Smash. The raw energy of this song pumps me up every time and instantly transforms me back into 11 year old me. I miss the 90’s a lot and music is one of the biggest reasons why. If I could only recommend you lot listen to one track, this is the one.
5/5
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Track 6 - Something To Believe In
One of the lines of lyrics in this song reads, “Do you accept, what you are told, without even thinking?”. This album was deep as fuck and songs like this really showed it off. So many bands are influenced by Dexter’s thoughts on the government and his influence still can be heard now. I do this weird thing where I will call different bands the children of an influential band. To me, The Offspring are OG. Children of them would be a band like Rise Against. You can definitely hear those kinds of vibes in their music because of songs like this. Still flawless.
5/5
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Track 7 - Come Out And Play (Keep Em’ Seperated)
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Track 7 - Come Out And Play (Keep Em’ Seperated)
This might have been their biggest commercial success. This song was EVERYWHERE. MTV had it on constant rotation and every hour our local rock station would play one song off of this album. As a child, this was probably my favorite Offspring song. At this point, it’s becoming very clear why I consider this the greatest rock album of the 90’s. This may sound crazy, but I feel like this album was better than any Nirvana album. Remember, I have opinions and yours may significantly differ from mine. I love Nirvana, but there’s just something magical about this record and every track to this point.
5/5
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Track 8 - Self Esteem
A kind of anthem for losers everywhere, this was one of The Offspring’s first mainstream successes. As we move ahead with this review you’ll notice a trend with this album. Almost ALL of these tracks are instantly recognizable. This album only has a run time of 46:47. Something like 12 minutes of that is silence, so it’s really only like a 32 minuteish album. So far this album gets a perfect score from me.
5/5
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Track 9 - It’ll Be A Long Time
I didn’t really like their first 2 albums. But this one was a fucking masterpiece. Dexter’s lyricism really shines on a few of these tracks more brighter than the other songs and this is one of the best, lyrically. His grasp of world events and what really goes on behind the curtains are the stuff that martyrs are made from.
5/5
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Track 10 - Killboy Powerhead
This is one of my least favorite tracks. But, don't get me wrong, even at their least, they're still awesome. This track does however ruin their perfect score with me. Ironic, the song that made it happen was a cover song. You can almost spot the indifference immideately. Still good, but they should have used their own song.
3.5/5
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Track 11 - What Happened To You?
This is the strangest song on Smash almost taking on a ska vibe. It works though and also has its place amongst the other stellar tracks in this album. The solo is short and to the point, but leaves a resonance in your head making you remember it almost immediately.
5/5
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Track 12 - So Alone
This track is kind of meh. It’s a good song and all, but just not quite as powerful and memorable as the rest. The first half of this album is AMAZING. The later tracks just weren’t as good. Don’t get me wrong, a few were, but the back end of this album was lacking some.
3/5
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Track 13 - Not The One
This song had more of Dexter’s amazing lyricism of world insight at play. When I was younger, I didn’t really understand the lyrics as much. But now that I’ve gotten older, these lyrics are a lot more sense and feel just as relevant as they did then, as they do now.
5/5
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Track 14 - Smash / Hidden Track
I didn’t really get into this track until early in the 2000’s. I would usually listen to the first 8 songs then switch to something else. It turned out to be one of the best tracks Smash. The hidden track coulda been better, but we won’t rate that. Just Smash.
5/5
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Overall this is one of the best, most underrated 90’s rock albums. People remember the hits, but forget about the AMAZING album backing up those hits. This is an example of a perfect album. Hopefully, it will still be listened to long after I’m gone, because it definitely deserves its place as one of the greatest all-time albums.
66.5/70
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