The Offspring - Let The Bad Times Roll (April 16, 2021) • Page 6

That was the one I noticed the most too. Bob Rock had no idea how to record cymbals

 

It's embarrassingly bad. They should remove this version from the album and get a proper mix. Who approved this?

 

after hearing the leak, i decided to order the lemonade vinyl from target. there are some bangers in here: utopia, mountain, opiods, and chop for sure.

i know the initial reaction to sex is that it's a joke song, but as a person who's been married and divorced, it was bittersweet. not a trash song at all (goes for anyone who has the same opinion about 'spare me the details').

but now... after reading a few comments about the actual audio of the album, i hope it sounds *better* on vinyl.

 

I'm not sure how, but this album is simultaneously better and worse than anticipated.

"Utopia" is going to rip live. The title track/single is sonically corny as hell, but pretty undeniable in terms of how catchy it is (and the lyrical content is decent enough). "Breaking These Bones" basically sounds like a NOFX cover. "Coming For You" is a perfectly serviceable modern rock radio single.

"The Opioid Diaries" is a true banger that would have fit on Ixnay on the Hombre. Probably my favorite of the bunch.

There's a few clunkers though: "Behind Your Walls" and "Army of One" slow things down to a halt early in the album. "Hasan Chop" is terrible. "We Never Have Sex Anymore" isn't as trite lyrically as it sounds at first, but... I can't get over how terrible the music is. It sounds like it was written in 1998. "Lullaby" is just bad and I'm not even sure why it's on here.

I like the new version of "Gone Away," but I highly doubt I'll be listening to it unless I'm drunk and need a cry.

So I guess it's about 50-50 in terms of good versus bad, but most of the good is me going "Eh, it's catchy I guess."

 

my first impression of hassan chop was that it was a b-side for the scott pilgrim soundtrack, and it made me like it even more.

 

You think "Hassan Chop" is terrible? I find that surprising. For me, it's most "classic Offspring" song in decades. I mean, the guitar solo is even lifted from "Call It Religion" off their 1986 demo and Dexter's vocals sound almost Ignition like. But hey, to each their own.

 

A lot of early Offspring was fucking terrible. Just because something's on a band's first couple of albums and/or fast doesn't make it good. Or memorable.

 

Behind Your Walls, title track, and Opioid Diaries are my favs right now

 

Well, that came off as aggressive.

Anyway, as I said, to each their own. I happen to dig their early material.

 

Sorry. I have a bad habit of throwing curse words in where they don't really need to be... Definitely didn't mean it to come off that way! I like the first few albums just fine. But a lot of it is pretty forgettable, in part because of how fast it is. Which is odd because of the debt that S/T and Ignition owe to T.S.O.L., who are almost always super catchy no matter how slow or fast they are. Hah.

I listened to "Hassan Chop," and beyond the intro and the "U-S-A!" line, I didn't remember a single part of it when the song was over.

 

Dexter Holland of The Offspring: Q&A

 

I’m just gonna say it:

I like “we never have sex anymore”

I’ll give everyone a minute to digest that information.

 

Strangely though, the version of "Coming for you" they uploaded to streaming services seems to be a mix of the version they released in 2016 and the one from the leak, lyrics wise.

 

I kind of like it too honestly. And just because someone mentioned it above, I quite like Spare Me The Details as well.

Also This Is Not Utopia reminds me of Slim Pickens but I wish it had a proper ending.

 

this is a safe space

 

Okay so based on first listen this is pretty good but not great. Maybe about the same level as Splinter where there are some fucking bangers mixed in with some much more middling stuff. Favorite songs are This Is Not Utopia, the title track, The Opioid Diaries and Hassan Chop. I actually like We Never Have Sex Anymore so I'm glad that was the closest thing to a joke song that we get on here

 

Double post but after going through their discography for the first time in several years I was surprised how little my opinion has changed, most of their albums really hold up until they're dragged down by the joke songs. They're easily at their best when they're making fast-paced punk for me

I'd rank them:

Ixnay on the Hombre
Smash
Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace
Americana
Conspiracy of One
Ignition
Days Go By
Splinter
The Offspring

With the new one being somewhere in the bottom three. None are outright terrible though

 

I still think Splinter has some of my favourite Offspring songs but it suffers from the filler joke songs and the overall shortness of the album.

 

Splinter is a top Offspring EP that happens to be padded out to album length with some absolute dreck.

Irritatingly, I can't just say "cut the joke songs" either because Spare Me The Details is one of the catchiest songs they've ever written.

 

Honestly I feel the same way about that song. I was gutted at the time it didn't make the album officially. I think it was only included on the album in Australia or something. Either way that song is a top tier Offspring joke song for sure.

 

I think it was a Australia/New Zealand exclusive single, but definitely part of the album. It's track 10 on my EU CD version

 

I enjoyed the majority of this album. Dexter sounds weird and extra nasally for some reason though. It doesn’t bother me but I definitely notice it.

Opening track and Opiod rule.

 

The Offspring was my first ever favorite band and Americana was the first album I ever bought. As a result I’ll always check out a new album of theirs even though I’m well past the point of expecting greatness from them. Having said that, the production on this album is TERRIBLE. How in the world did a professional band and a professional producer think this was okay? Army of One is definitely the biggest offender as others have mentioned.

I’ve kinda moved on musically so the fact that it took this band 9 years to put out an album that features a song from 2015, a piano re-recording of a song from 1997, a punk version of an orchestral song from 1875, and a reprise of the lead single, has me shrugging my shoulders and chuckling a bit. If I were still an invested fan of this band I would be supremely pissed off though.

 

Pretty good not great album. Definitely some bangers in there. I'll enjoy this one for the summer.

 

Well said, agreed on all counts. It's a struggle to make it through the album with how disjointed the production is. It sounds like maybe 4-5 of the songs were pretty well mixed/produced and the rest was an afterthought.