Album Review: The Offspring - Supercharged

Punk was supposed to be about being cool, wasn't it? You wouldn't know that from The Offspring, who have now spent the majority of their career writing terrible novelty songs, and throwing in a couple of punk numbers on each album to make it seem like they still have some level of credibility. They don't, and Dexter Holland is a great example of how being smart doesn't mean you can't still be an idiot. To use his own parlance, The Offspring are not fly, even for a bunch of white guys.

Their previous album was not only their worst record by a landslide, it was so bad it felt like an insult to the fans. It was the same kind of half-hearted bullshit effort Green Day put in on their "Father Of All..." album, and I wasn't going to sugar-coat it by trying to find the upside. There was a time when I liked The Offspring a lot, and I'm one of the few people who even liked them into their pop ballad days, but I drew a line. The only reason I'm talking about this album at all is because it happened to find its way into my inbox. I wouldn't have actually put any effort into hearing this thing.

The bullshit starts early, as "Looking Out For #1" not only has terrible spoken interjections, but it entirely borrows the melody and cadence of "Half-Truism" for the chorus. It's enough of a clone that if it struck me the very first time I heard it, the band that has been playing the other song for over a decade should have noticed it sometime in the production and recording phase. But this is late-era Offspring we're talking about, so we shouldn't be expecting anything more.

"Light It Up" follows by completely ripping off "Smash" this time, which at least is the right era of their history to go for. It doesn't do anything to make me think this record had any energy at all put into it, but at least the sound of this one isn't offensive. It's not as good as the source material, but it's not as embarrassing as a lot of their more 'original' sounding material of recent times.

"Make It All Right" has more spoken interjections, this time that come with the sound of the band dropping out, like in the early days of digital music when labels were watermarking promos so they couldn't be spread online. It sounds so ridiculous I'm wondering how anyone can think it was a good thing to put on a record, let alone a group of veterans. Did Dexter decide he didn't have to do an extra take or two of the vocal if they covered it up with a terrible voice-over? That's the impression I get.

Maybe it's just the promo I received, but all of this disappointing music also comes wrapped up in a horrible production. The guitars are thin and buzzy, Dexter's vocals are buried despite being high in the mix, and the cymbals distort all over the place. It's an ugly sound, and lacks any of the charm "Smash" had. That wasn't a 'pretty' production either, but it was clear, heavy, and powerful. This record sounds like it's the copy someone taped on their 1980's boombox while the actual CD was playing.

If that doesn't give you enough of a warning, I'll put it bluntly; The Offspring are no longer a good band. Maybe they put on a decent show if stick to playing the old stuff, but they lost the plot as far as making records a while ago. The only reason to ever listen to this album is feel better about the last time your favorite band disappointed you. The odds are it couldn't be nearly this bad.