The Daily 90s Breakdown: The Offspring, "All I Want"
Let’s kick off this week of guest posts with The Offspring! This is a song that combines your typical 1990’s pop punk (back when it was innovative), a bit of the rock dominance of the decade, and a touch of the ska movement.
The Offspring were one of the first 90s punk SoCal bands to receive national fame, starting off with “Come Out and Play” and “Self Esteem” off their hit third album Smash (which, per Wikipedia, set the all-time record for units sold for an independent label band, 16 million, on Epitaph Records). They particularly enjoyed airplay dominance on MTV, which was still a dominant force in original music promotion at the time. “All I Want” comes from the following album, Ixnay On The Hombre, an album that was much different than Smash and turned off some of their mainstream fans. Then again, fuck them! It’s a quality album. Their next album, Americana, moved the Offspring closer to mainstream again and provided the biggest hits of their career. The group has not made an impact in this decade.
I picked this song over other favorites because I placed this song on one of my best mix CDs from the 1990s (randomly) and I like its fast, aggressive energy and very short duration. Also, this is one of the songs included with the game Crazy Taxi; I remember driving to my friend’s place in Troy, NY to party on the weekends when I was in college, and they had this game prominently featured on their Sega Dreamcast. I must have played it for dozens of hours. Finally, I wanted to include something that was close to their core sound without being too obscure, and upbeat without being too pop (which you’d definitely get if you picked one of the top Americana singles). My other personal Offspring favorites: “Come Out and Play”, “Self Esteem”, “Gotta Get Away”, “Gone Away”, “The Kids Aren’t Alright” (The Offspring’s top song on last.fm), and “She’s Got Issues”.
(I don’t feel like the pop songs on Americana have lasting value; it’s definitely a sellout job, but not one nearly as rough as what Smash Mouth has accomplished)
The Offspring’s most enduring peers are Green Day, a modern punk-pop act that stands as a musical monolith over both the 1990s and 2000s. The success of SoCal punk-pop acts in the early decade paved the way for the rise of ska, or skater music in the mid-to-late 90s. Ska has no particular descendant musical style, and borrows heavily from punk, pop, reggae, and hip-hop. Because of the scattered style of the music, the success of individual bands has been all over the map. Sublime is one particular act that has achieved enduring success despite the tragic early death of their lead singer Bradley Nowell right before the release of their massively successful self-titled third album. No Doubt also has enjoyed immense commercial success even after branching out widely from their original sound (as has their lead singer, Gwen Stefani), and Blink 182 is a rock band as big as they come.
It should also be noted that The Offspring received radio play as a mainstream rock act, at a time when rock music was much more dominant than it has been lately. The 90s were filled with all kinds of rock-based musical movements: heavy metal, grunge, soft alternative, punk pop, ska, electronica, rap-rock all make the list of hard guitar-based styles that enjoyed album chart domination for various stretches of time. Even straight pop music often touched upon rock music at times, as it did on Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album. The Offspring could very easily be included in a radio playlist with Metallica, U2, Collective Soul, Pearl Jam, and The Chemical Brothers. Any discussion of this musical decade must necessarily focus on rock’s influence from day one, a decade kicked off by Nirvana and pretty much ended by Limp Bizkit. (Well, ugh. Ok, Rolling Stone lists Madonna’s “Music” as the top song of 2000. Still depressed? At least Santana came back in 1999.)
