The Offspring
Ixnay On The Hombre

THE REVIEW

You know, The Offspring was the band that more than any other accompanied my childhood. More precisely, in 1997, when I was still a kid, I discovered one of the CDs that would influence me the most in the coming years, namely "Ixnay On The Hombre".

This album contains all the essence of Dexter Holland, Noodles, Greg K, and Ron Welty. This is the quintessential CD of the Californian punk band, not "Smash", the debut album, as it was still a bit raw, nor that atrocity known as "Americana", which, despite featuring some rather enjoyable tracks (The Kids Aren't Alright, the best song in the entire Offspring discography, or Walla Walla, equally enjoyable) left room for mere commercial trash from MTV like Why Don't You Get A Job and especially Pretty Fly, the song that effectively killed the old Offspring to create the new ones, more inclined towards the mainstream.

However, returning to this CD, it must be said that it contains at least 3 fundamental songs for the career of the Californian band: I'm talking about All I Want, a frenzied track in pure punk style that lasts just under 2 minutes and had a fair amount of success in the following years (it was also included in the soundtrack of the first splendid Crazy Taxi) and a video was also made for it, Gone Away, a song that Dexter wrote after the death of his girlfriend, this song also accompanied by a video, in this case, rather unsettling and set in a dark slaughterhouse, a piece much slower and darker than the band's standard ones, and The Meaning Of Life, another frenzied-paced song with one of the funniest videos ever (highly recommended).

Holland's lyrics and voice are perhaps at their peak, as is Noodles' guitar, which is also composer, and Greg K's excellent bass that drives all the songs with surgical precision giving them a nice rhythm, while the only slightly off-key element is the drummer Welty, who doesn't repeat the extraordinary performance of "Smash" and simply performs his little task, a pity. Also noteworthy is how this was the first CD after which Dexter cut his braids, and was then OBVIOUSLY COPIED in the old look many years later by that pompous arrogant Axl Rose, but that's another story (by the way Axl, wasn't your album supposed to be released something like 12, 13 years ago? But yeah, take your time).

In conclusion, if you like 90s American punk, this CD is the one for you. Not too underground (All I Want and I Choose are moderately commercial), but not decisively devoted to mere commerce like that atrocity "Americana", this is the CD I've always recommended to my rock-loving friends. They have never been disappointed, and I think those of you who know a little about music will agree with them.