I was never really the biggest Offspring fan, mainly because when I was in elementary school and first learning about Green Day and Blink 182, The Offspring was making an even worse mockery of "punk" with songs like "Pretty Fly For A White Guy" and shit like that. Even at the puerile age of 11 I could tell this was over-sweetened.
But I always kinda gave them the benefit of the doubt; I mean, after all, they had been a band in the early 80s under a different name and the first 2 or 3 albums are cool SoCal skate-punk. I grew up with some of that older stuff without even realizing it, and to this day "I'm just a sucker with no self-esteem."
However, since the abominations they were already releasing when I was a fucking kid, nothing has gotten better about this band. They're just too bright, too sing-songey, too fucking KROQ for me to ever take seriously. This newest album, "Days Go By" sees the band focusing more on their quasi-serious, "life can be hard" type subject matter, much in the fashion of their hit from like a decade ago "The Kids Aren't Alright." Unfortunately, subject matter is not the only way these tracks mimic that song; the first couple tracks might as well be using the exact same goddamn guitar progressions.
What's even sadder than their appropriation of their own past glory is the nearly-impossible-to-miss mimicry of a far more popular band that they no doubt influenced greatly: Rise Against. It's like Dexter Holland and Noodles listened to SoCal radio "punk" for an afternoon and realized they should just try as much as possible to sound like "The Sufferer and The Witness." As if Rise Against wasn't oversaturated enough, the last thing we need is an even more unfortunately-ubiquitous symbol of "punk"'s flaccidity blatantly ripping them off. Similarly, the track "Oc Guns" is a falsely-Latin-tinged whiteboy-reggae song that's vaguely about a glamorized criminal-lite lifestyle, much like the lame modern rock hit from a few years back, "Lay Me Down" by the Dirty Heads....A track that was really only big on KROQ. Do these guys listen to anything else? "I Wanna Secret Family (With You)" might as well just be a fucking cover version of "Stacy's Mom (Has Got It Going On)".
Beyond just sad is this:
There is a track midway through the album, which has had a music video made for it so apparently they are actively promoting this song, called "Cruisin California (Bumpin In My Trunk)". I feel like that name alone should be enough of a description for why this a bad thing, but just to break it down....it sounds like a half-rate Katy Perry song with really bad singing, or maybe a better relation is that it sounds ALOT like "Friday" by Rebecca Black. You heard me right. I don't know what they're game plan was on this track but my god, it's mind-blowingly bad.
If you used to like "Smash" in the mid-90s or if you remember this band from the empty-pool skate days of yore, DO NOT listen to this album. The only song that even throws a bone to older listeners is at the very end, a by-the-colors Bad Religion ripoff called "Divide By Zero". It's bleak and depressing, not because of the stark socioeconomic point I guess its trying to make (again with the Rise Against wannabe-isms) but because of how forced a simple punk beat seems to feel from this former beacon of the Southern California sound.
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