The Offspring: Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If you only remember the Offspring as pop-punk jokesters — SoCal boys who quip about clueless white guys — then the band's rather serious eighth album may surprise you. Over hardcore-punk grooves and a mess of guitar wreckage, the multiplatinum quartet deliver their thesis: "Stuff is messed up." That's the title of the ninth track — a smorgasbord of carping on which frontman Dexter Holland disses the media, the Iraq War, reality television and, uh, celebrity fundraisers. But that same message also fuels raging anthems about bad relationships ("Fix You") and feeling angry for unspecified reasons ("Takes Me Nowhere"). The album's latter half contains some welcome pop moments — "Nothingtown" and "Let's Hear It for Rock Bottom" make going nowhere in life sound like hot fun — but the standout melodies often take a back seat to the diatribes, and Holland doesn't back up his disaffection with many good reasons to rally behind him. That kind of brooding might fit the national mood, but America should demand more from its punk bands.