The Offspring are one of the most successful punk bands of all time, largely because they’ve always had an ear for the times. During a period when their California punk peers were rigidly committed Bad Religion’s playbook, the broader sounds of alternative rock seeped like a sponge through The Offspring’s breakthrough album, 1994’s Smash. In its oversized hooks the record mirrored the pop-punk of bands like Green Day, which were beginning to dominate the radio at the time, but the record also recalled Nirvana in its grungy, halting guitars and in singer Dexter Holland’s hoarse screams. The disc was also imbued with a heaviness that endeared it to underserved hard-rock and heavy-metal fans of the day.
Grunge was for all purposes dead by the time The Offspring released 1998’s Americana, but the band adapted well, commenting on the newfound prevalence of rap culture in the suburbs on their jocular hit “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)” and, like so many punks of the era, aligning themselves with the ska movement on “Why Don’t You Get a Job?”
They continue to stay with the times. Their late-2001 single “Defy You” found Holland channeling the brooding intensity of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, while other singles from the era capture the irreverence of Blink-182 and Sum-41’s mall-punk. In typical fashion, the group again captured the pulse of alternative radio with last year’s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, which included, “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” a hit so sardonic Pete Wentz could have penned it.
