Smash by The Offspring
Smash is the third studio album by American punk rock band The Offspring. After touring in support of their previous album, Ignition (1992), The Offspring began recording Smash in October 1993 at Track Record in North Hollywood, California. Recording and production were finished two months later, and the album was released on April 8, 1994 on Epitaph Records. Smash incorporates elements of punk rock and grunge. In the United States, Smash has sold over six million copies as of 2013 and has been certified 6x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Peaking at number four on the US Billboard 200, it has sold over 12-16 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling independent label album of all time. It was the first album released on Epitaph Records to obtain gold and platinum status. Smash was The Offspring's introduction into worldwide popularity and critical acclaim, and produced a number of hit singles including the hugely successful "Come Out and Play", "Self Esteem" and "Gotta Get Away" singles. As a fan-favorite, Smash received generally positive reviews from critics and garnered attention from major labels, including Columbia Records, with whom The Offspring would sign in 1996. The album has been recognized as an influential and seminal component of the punk rock and pop punk scene in the mid-1990s.
Arriving on the heels of Green Day’s blockbuster <i>Dookie</i>, The Offspring’s third album completed the one-two punch of records that forever transformed the ’90s alt-rock landscape into a pop-punk playground. But compared to their Californian peers—who benefitted from Warner Brothers’ promotional muscle—The Offspring were an even more unlikely success story, given that <i>Smash</i> lived up to its truth-in-advertising title as a shoestring release issued through Bad Religion’s Epitaph Records imprint. At more than 10 million copies sold, it became the biggest-selling independent release of all time. <br /> But even in a post-Nirvana marketplace that was more receptive to aggressive sounds, you certainly couldn’t accuse the Orange County band of taking the obvious path to stardom. <i>Smash</i>’s breakthrough single, “Come Out and Play”, not only represented a change in pace from The Offspring’s typical pogo-ready thrashers, it sounded like absolutely nothing else on radio at the time—an eccentric, insidiously catchy account of L.A. gangland violence spiked with a Latino-accented spoken-word hook and a wobbly Arabian guitar melody that snake-charmed millions of non-punks into the mosh pit. But if the song had all the makings of a novelty hit, <i>Smash</i> confirmed The Offspring’s staying power by harnessing their hardcore-schooled abandon into the steely, grungy grooves of “Gotta Get Away” and “Self Esteem”. And in these more controlled environments, frontman Dexter Holland emerged as one of the most charismatic and commanding vocalists in modern rock, flexing a mix of authentic, street-level angst and arena-ready bravado on the road-rage anthem “Bad Habit”. Riotous and irreverent in equal measure, <i>Smash</i> took a battering ram to the divide between the underground and the mainstream, clearing a path for the Warped Tour generation’s takeover of American youth culture.
