Review → Descendents – Milo Goes to College (1982)
Descendents - Milo Goes to College
Are you in to punk rock? Like, at all? If so, you should be into the Descendents. Hailing from Southern California, this former three-piece surf-rock outfit released, in 1982, an essential document that fused the intensity of hardcore with the bouncy, catchy music of Ramones-style pop punk. Since then, they’ve been sporadically releasing albums and touring (Milo, it turns out, went to college, eventually earning a Ph.D in biochemistry). But this, their first LP from the band, remains their legacy.
The album kicks off with “Myage,” establishing their tradition of ending words in “-age.” Wikipedia mentions that this helped endear them to the nerd crowd, which I’d buy. Several of the album’s songs feature such alterations; “Myage,” Tonyage,” “Bikeage,” etc. Anyway, “Myage” is a punk rock classic, careening through chords as Milo sings about a girl who “don’t need no one/she don’t need me!”
Most of the lyrics are either “love” songs, or typical teenage outcast rants. “Parents” rails against parents who just don’t get it and “won’t [...] shut up.” “I’m Not a Loser” is a snarling reaction to being the nerdy kid bullied by the more popular jock types. The song can be hard to listen to for the more sensitive, featuring homophobic slurs (and endless Internet discussion is whether the verse they’re contained in is meant to be from the jock’s viewpoint).
The music on the album has a definite pop sensibility to it, but also a decided hardcore edge; most of the songs top out at the two minute mark, and most feature throttling guitars, such as the blistering “I’m Not a Punk,” and the fan favorite “Suburban Home.” The band found a fusion of pop-punk and hardcore that worked, and worked well, and helped to inspire millions of bands in their wake, up to today with bands like Teenage Bottlerocket, the Ergs!, and many, many others. For that alone, this album earns a spot in the history books. That it’s great music earns that spot doubly so, and any fan of punk- be it pop-punk, hardcore, or whatever other subgenre you like- owes it to themselves to give this record many spins.
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