The Offspring has been around for quite a long time. From "Blackball" to "Original Prankster," they've done it all. Frontman Bryan Holland (Dexter) has such a unique voice that will definitely knock your socks off. Dexter's scratchy vocals are backed by Kevin Wasserman (Noodles) on guitar, Greg Kriesel (Greg K.) on the bass guitar, and Ron Welty on drums. These four men have put out six house-shaking albums that have just been getting better and better as they go along... ...or is that worse?

Instead of writing a biography on the band, this is just going to be basically an editorial, and a little "review" for the Offspring.. so here we go. The earlier stuff is just amazing. The very first song I heard from these guys was Bad Habit, and I immeidately fell in love with it and went and bought the CD. This was about 6 years ago, by the way. That CD, Smash, is still one of the best I own. After that I went and bought Ignition which is also an awesome album. Then came around Ixnay on the Hombre... I never got around to buying this one, because I had heard it and didn't like most of it. There are a few songs off there that I do really like ("I Choose," "Gone Away," "All I Want") but I just didn't dig the album as a whole. Then here comes Americana. Ha... right. What a joke. I've got two words to describe this album: SELL OUT!!!!! With Pretty Fly (For a White Guy), they COMPLETELY had sold out and changed styles. Sure, it's a catchy song, and all the teeny-boppers walked around saying "give it to me baby, uh huh, uh huh), but it was just a complete sellout.... along with the rest of the CD. In fact, Have You Ever sounds remarkably similar to Dirty Magic from Ignition. Yeah, go listen to it... it pissed me off, too. So after Americana, I had lost all respect for the new Offspring. I still love the old stuff, I just hated Americana. Now their latest album, Conspiracy of One, is the same way. I had hoped that they would redeem themselves and go back to the old style of music, but they disappointed me once again. Original Prankster is yet another catchy teeny-bopper song.

Is there no escape? Will the Offspring continue to sell out? Will the madness never end? Why can't they just go back to the Smash and Ignition days? At least we can hang on to our old memories of those cherished albums...

--Ryan Sanders
(criticism, comments, and flames are welcomed. bring it on... :)