As followers of this magazine are aware, I was weaned on a musical diet of Kylie Minogue, Stryper (in their secular mode), and when I was feeling really saucy, Warrant. Aside from a foray into the Rapmasters collection and LL Cool J, my tastes were determined strictly by way Top 40 radio told me to listen to.
While this was going on, California punk rockers Bad Religion were well into a solid, at times spectacular, career that had already died and been resurrected with a triumvirate of records that, for my money, put a nonpareil exclamation point on the decade of Reagan/Bush.
And where was I? Well, my head was firmly entrenched in the collective anal orifice of Skid Row.
My first exposure to BR was thanks to MTV (the one good thing the network has ever done for me, thank you very much) and 1994's "Stranger Than Fiction" video. The combination of Boone's Farm wine, late nights in a college dorm and BR's punk-pop aesthetic hooked me instantly.
Being a latecomer to the Bad Religion dogma, I had some catching up to do. Within a matter of months, I had purchased the entire BR back catalog, save for the hard-to-find pre-breakup Into The Unknown (a record that, by all accounts, is a huge departure from anything else they've done, past or present, although I hear that Greg Graffin's solo record veers in much the same direction).
This month's installment of Forgotten Favorites delves into Bad Religion's album-by-album history. Let's go for a walk (not the after-dinner kind).
The 28 tracks on this record (some repeated two, even three times) feature a band that was still trying to find its feet. The songwriting is generally uninspired; the songs themselves are interchangeable and forgettable for the most part. There are highlights, sure: live staples "We're Only Gonna Die", "Fuck Armageddon ... This Is Hell" and "Along The Way", the sorta-funny-before-its-time-but-cliched-today "Voice Of God Is Government", and the three versions of their eponymous "theme song". On the other hand, the two interpretations of "Slaves" and "Drastic Actions", "Doing Time", "Oligarchy", "Eat Your Dog" ... all are collectively average, if not a little less, like a punk-rock blitzkrieg that misses its target. It didn't help that the production rendered much of the record unlistenable and Greg Graffin's vocals incomprehensible.
And then the members of Bad Religion went their separate ways for awhile. According to the liner notes for 80-85:
"Brett (Gurewitz - guitarist) quit, Greg Graffin moved to Wisconsin, Jay (Bentley - bassist) vegged out, and Peter (Finestone - drums) ... went to study in England for awhile."
After Back To The Known, Bad Religion seemed to be an entirely different band. Aided by production that was infinitely better than that on their earlier work, as well as a notable expansion of Graffin's vocabulary, BR started to carve out a niche for themselves that still sets them apart to this day.
It was on 1988's Suffer that the pieces started falling into place for the SoCal five-piece. Whereas the majority of their pre-split releases fell in between promising melodic punk rock and nondescript by-the-numbers four-chords-and-a-cloud-of-dust blasts of noise, Suffer marked an arrival to consistently memorable pop melodies and airtight hooks. Where 80-85 was directionless, Suffer was focused and straightforward.
Granted, BR's chosen genre doesn't exactly lend itself to a whole lot of differentiation from one song to the next (on the whole) - a malady that still plagues them - but the key to the band's endurance is simple: Greg Graffin could sing the phone book or the ingredients on a shampoo bottle and make it only slightly less memorable than "I Am The Walrus". This talent especially came into play on Suffer - lyrical hooks abound on the title track, "What Can You Do?", "You Are (The Government)" and a myriad of others.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: anechoic (n.) - free from echoes
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "The anechoic nebula rotating in my brain is persuading me, contritely, to persist." -- "Delirium Of Disorder"
While 1989's No Control starts off with a simple 1-2-3 bass drum sequence on "Change Of Ideas", it's about the only moment's peace on this romping tour de force. No Control is a realization of the potential that was touched upon with 80-85 and partially attained on Suffer. The miniscule problems that plagued Suffer are nowhere to be found on this record - the songs here are saber-sharp and clearly discernible from one another. No Control, quite frankly, was the work of a band that was rapidly ascending to the top of its game.
Highlights of this record are many: the stutter-step verses of the title track (in this writer's mind, one of their five best songs overall), "I Want To Conquer The World" (at this point, their best verse-chorus-verse song, carried to term instead of cut short after the first chorus), the ominous "Sanity" (by far their best mid-tempo tune, a well they would go to way too often on later albums), the gutwrenching "You" ("There's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend/But baby, I'm amazed at the hate that you can send") ... I could go on and on. Simply put, a blistering album, a must-own for even casual fans of the genre.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: epicene (n.) - having characteristics typical of either sex; effeminate, having characteristics of either sex
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "He's the quintessential mindless modern epicene." -- "Automatic Man"
An album that I affectionately like to call "The Corn Album" (after all, the cover of the Beatles' White Album was, you know, white), Against The Grain was an extension of its predecessor, and every bit as good. Bad Religion had discovered a formula for punk-rock immortality and was milking it for all they could.
ATG kicks off with "Modern Man", a centrifugal discharge of white light and heat. Though it's little more than a rewrite of No Control's "I Want To Conquer The World" (perhaps an epilogue?), "Modern Man" capsulizes this record's intensity, passion and violence. No, there's nothing concretly beautiful about this album, unless you're into amazing hooks, treacherous wheels-falling-off melodies and harmonies, choruses from hell and an apocalyptic aura surrounding the entire record. On top of that, the lyrics are more pointed than ever before: scathing invectives against the anti-abortion crowd ("Operation Rescue") and religion in general ("God Song") are among the 17 tracks here.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: myoma (n.) - a tumor consisting of muscle tissue
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "I'm one big myoma that thinks; my planet supports only me." -- "Modern Man"
1991's Generator was the first album with new drummer Bobby Schayer; in an unrelated incident, it was also the first BR album that didn't quite reach its potential. The title track is a keeper, and so is its follow-up track "Too Much To Ask", but after that, Generator is a cornucopia of hit-and-miss. It's not that any of the songs are bad, per se - it's just that the music seems to be a little more streamlined than before, losing its edge somewhere along the way. To their credit, BR doesn't seem to be any less angry - "Atomic Garden" is anti-nukes, "Heaven Is Falling" is a biting anti-Gulf War screed, "Only Entertainment" is anti-mass media ... come to think of it, these guys hate everything!
Point is, there's something missing here, and I can't quite put my finger on it. As far as I can tell, as opposed to the previous records being woven together into one fluid motion, this one's just 11 songs that really don't fit together, like a man with a large head and tiny limbs.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: chimaera (n.) - var. of chimera - an imaginary monster composed of incongruous parts
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: Well, he doesn't, but there is a song called "Chimaera" on Generator that includes the lyric "His handiwork is flawed and it's there for all to see. Mutations, aberrations and blatant anomalies - they multiply and give rise to this monstrosity."
This was the disc I accidentally ran over with a very heavy vehicle, and yet it survived. Keep in mind the incident took place when I was still giving the record a fighting chance. Looking back, I should have backed up and ran over it again.
Recipe For Hate starts off promising enough: a triumphant trifecta of the title track, "Kerosene" and "American Jesus" - greatest hits, one and all - but then somewhere around the first verse of "Portrait of Authority", RFH takes an abrupt left turn into The Land Of Spontaneous Weariness and doesn't really recover till the latter few songs on the record. "Portrait" is meandering rather than menacing, "All Good Soldiers" pokes instead of punches, and the yawn-inducing "Struck A Nerve". The more uptempo songs aren't much better, lacking the bite of most previous BR material, "Man With A Mission" being the only exception. Then, after "Lookin' In", BR rediscovers its aggressiveness - the brilliant "Don't Pray On Me", "Modern Day Catastrophists" and the catchy "Skyscraper" close the album with a flourish ... but not enough for me to recommend this album to anyone but insomniacs, masochists and obsessive-compulsive collectors.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: perdition (n.) - eternal damnation
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "I can damn you to fiery perdition." -- "Man With A Mission"
Admittedly, part of this grade is for sentimentality's sake. It was, after all, the first BR album I owned, and besides, the thought of Lane and I sitting in my dorm room doing a painfully horrid (but fun!) rendition of the title track (vocals by Lane, guitar and oozinaahs by me) is too much to turn my back on. Warm fuzzies aside, this record succeeded where others had failed: not only did it follow back-to-back mediocre albums, but BR had jumped to Atlantic, supposedly dooming them to also-ran status.
STF doesn't merely disprove that blueprint for failure, it blows it clear out of the water. The first side of this record is as strong a batch of songs as the band had ever put on one album: "Incomplete" obliterates the bitter taste left behind by Recipe For Hate, "Leave Mine To Me" is both-barrels-blazing aural Armageddon, and the title track is a Hammond organ-driven meltdown that's as memorable as it is intelligent and violent. The rest of the record follows the same vein - more propelled by melody than past records, but no less explosive ("Television", "Hooray For Me"). Even the slower numbers here are just as good - "Infected" and "21st Century (Digital Boy)" (also appearing on Against The Grain) are irreplaceable.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: febrile (adj.) - feverish
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "A febrile shocking violent smack, and the children are hoping for a heart attack." -- "Stranger Than Fiction"
After STF, Brett Gurewitz left the band on some pretty negative terms - on 1994's Power Pop live bootleg, Graffin sings on "Stranger Than Fiction" "I want to know why Gurewitz cracked" - and was replaced by Brian Baker, guitarist for hardcore stalwarts Minor Threat. With one half of the band's creative braintrust gone (Gurewitz was the author of such BR classics as "Kerosene", "Anesthesia", "Flat Earth Society", "21st Century (Digital Boy)" and "Generator"), the quintet embarked on its followup to Stranger Than Fiction.
BR's followup to its most solid record was bound to be a slight letdown, despite production by Ric Ocasek (Guided by Voices, Weezer). Still, this record has some personal reverbations - it's the one album I link the most with a specific event (i.e. a road trip gone horribly bad, during which this album was a constant in the CD player). It's not the songs that cause the mental ties to that spring trip a few years ago, it's the overall sound of the album, no doubt a consequence of Ocasek's production. This album is the most consistent-sounding of BR's records - everything compacted into the mid-levels of the EQ, and it's pretty slick.
Much like Recipe For Hate, the best songs on The Gray Race are at the start and the end of the record (title track, "Them And Us" and "A Walk"; "Drunk Sincerity", "Come Join Us" and "Cease"), but the remaining tunes aren't throwaways: "Punk Rock Song", "Empty Causes", "10 in 2010" and "Victory" are almost as strong, with "Streets of America" being the only dispensible number. This record is easily the most accessible of the BR catalog.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: retinue (n.) - a group of retainers or attendants
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "Could it be that everyone selfishly desires their own personal retinue?" -- "Empty Causes"
I'm still not sure what to make of this album. Part of me wants to embrace it like prior BR albums, and part of me wishes that my CD player would open up and spit this record across the room. And that same part of me wants to write, "Bad Religion have reached the absolute end of their careers. They can't go anywhere from here. They can't ever hope to write another No Control or "Generator", or even another "Sanity", so why bother? They're treading water!"
The more I listen to this record, the more I realize that I'm wrong on at least one point. They're not done, not by any stretch. And while the aforementioned album and songs are definitely benchmarks, there's something to be said for not rewriting the hits. Still, it's not right to say that BR are breaking new ground with this record. A couple of the tunes here have bits and pieces of rewritten melodies, more so than before. Most notably, "Shades of Truth" appears to be a cross between "The Answer" (from ATG) and Generator's "Two Babies In The Dark". That's minor, though.
No Substance is more of a Graffin platform than ever before, and he takes full advantage of it, making those formerly simple melodies ridiculously complex by cramming as much detail and ephemera into them as he possibly can. And some of the themes are fairly tired: yep, televangelists are still generally bad people - see the sarcasm-laced "The State Of The End Of The Millennium Address", a sequel of 80-85's "Voice of God Is Government"; see also this album's cover and liner-note art. "Sowing The Seeds Of Utopia" puts politicians square in the crosshairs, and "The Biggest Killer In American History" is an indictment of the Kaczynskis and the McVeighs of our time ("It's time for him to die!").
On the other hand, No Substance is the work of a band that has weathered all sorts of storms and grown stronger because of it. "Shades Of Truth" and "No Substance" are genuine anthems, slowly building into big blowout singalongs, as is "Raise Your Voice!", which comes off as either ridiculous or inspirational, depending on your feelings about class warfare. And they can still rock out - "Hear It", "Mediocre Minds" and "At The Mercy Of Imbeciles" are all as blistering as some BR tunes of yore.
Stick it in your Funk ‘N Wagnalls: pusilanimous (n.) - lacking courage or resolve, marked by contemptible timidity
Use it in a sentence, Greg Graffin: "They'd rather see us all pusilanimous, absorbent in their chorus of correctness." -- "Hear It"
I'm curious to see how much farther Bad Religion can carry this thing, but there will always be a need in music for the voice of the opposition. Do yourself a huge favor (especially if you're trying to improve your Scrabble game or ace Reader's Digest's "Word Power" feature) and pick up a couple of their records. They'll make you think. Even if you don't agree with the message (they are, after all, fervent atheists), you've still gotta admire the messengers for finding a way to make punk rock both smart and memorable.
--Brandon Grimes
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