The last time I wrote about anything involving music on this blog was a year after Pat DiNizio from The Smithereens died.
In that post, I wrote about my favorite Smithereens songs. It has been six months or so since then, and I’ll admit that I haven’t written about music enough in my blogs.
I think I should. I don’t write about fun stuff that is relevant to my life such as music, wrestling, and video games in this blog enough, and I think it would be nice if I did.
That being said, the new Bad Religion record, Age of Unreason, came out last week. Bad Religion has long been my favorite band, as I have always enjoyed their fast paced hardcore punk sound and thought provoking and their lyrical content.
In fact, the lyrics of most of Bad Religion’s songs (particularly from the early to mid 1990s) represent the core of my Libertarian political beliefs. While I had other influences, Bad Religion was certainly one of the main influences on my worldviews in my teens and early 20s.
I still get somewhat excited whenever a new Bad Religion record is scheduled to drop, and Age of Unreason is no exception.
This part will set up the review proper, containing how I discovered Bad Religion and how my expectations of the band changed over time.
My history with Bad Religion
I first encountered Bad Religion when nearly everybody else my age encountered hardcore “skate” punk, in 1994.
You see, unlike the last decade or so, rock music that didn’t suck was popular back in the 1990s. And in 1994, the grunge era was coming to a close. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died, which caused a lot of the other bands who were popular alongside them to take some time off.
Right around the middle of that year, Green Day released Dookie, which sold millions of copies pretty quickly. In the fall of that year, The Offspring would release Smash, which also sold millions of copies.
This was how Bad Religion emerged. I heard a couple of their songs on the radio but I paid them no mind. Although I did make a mental note of the Bad Religion songs I heard in 1995 and 1996 as I was getting pretty tired of the same old alternative pop songs I was hearing at the time.
With a growing interest in skate punk, I kept Bad Religion in mind as I witnessed the ska era of 1997 and 1998. My first run in with ska was when I heard Goldfinger in 1996. They mentioned Bad Religion in one of their songs and it jogged my memory.
I became obsessed with ska from then on, but would keep skate punk on the backburner. I would buy records from Reel Big Fish, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Toasters (who are probably my 3rd favorite band of all time), and Goldfinger.
But I took time off all that when I rediscovered Bad Religion in 1999. I saw their music video for “A Walk” one night and I immediately took note of what record it was from, The Gray Race. I also saw a music video for “When I Get Old” by The Descendents. I made a mental note of that as well.
I purchased The Gray Race on July 1st, 1999, days after my 17th birthday. It was at a record store that my father and I always checked out. I immediately got sucked into the record. At this point, I had collected every Offspring record as well, and to my surprise, this record sounded better. I was hooked.
I then remembered that I had head another song from them, 21st Century Digital Boy, five years earlier. I made plans to pick up the record that song was from.
One place I hung out at a lot that summer was a bookstore/record store that was right across from my gym. I would get up, walk to the gym, hang out at the bookstore/record store with one of my buddies after, then head home.
Right after I bought The Gray Race, I made it a point to see what record “21st Century Digital Boy” was from. I checked this at the bookstore/record store and saw that it was from Stranger Than Fiction, their 1994 release.
I realized that I was going to be visiting my mother soon. I made it a point to try to get her to buy me the record instead of getting my father to buy it for me. After all, I had already spent the money I got for my 17th birthday.
My mother got me Stranger Then Fiction in August, when I visited her. Roughly every month after, I would buy a different Bad Religion record with the “child support” she sent me ($20 to $40 per month).
By 2000, I had managed to purchase most of Bad Religion’s full length record discography. I still own the original CDs. I had purchased the band’s latest record to that point, No Substance, in April of that year. This was one month before The New America, the band’s latest record at the time, was slated for release.
I affectionately called the day I purchased The New America “Black Tuesday,” since it was released on a Tuesday. Saving the $20 that my mother sent me, I walked to the bookstore/record store, but the record was not there.
So I went to the mall instead. I bought the record, then got some food with the rest of the money, listening to it on the way home.
With No Substance still fresh in my mind, I almost expected The New America to be similar. And it was. It had more songs with fast time signatures than No Substance, but it wasn’t as “angry” as No Substance. In fact, some of the lyrics were positive and uplifting, which I actually didn’t mind. It also contained the second ever Bad Religion song I ever heard that was about relationships: 1000 Memories.
2002’s The Process of Belief and 2004’s The Empire Strikes First were similar to their late 80s and early 90s records: 35 or so good minutes of fast paced raging against the machine with a few slow songs peppered in with an occasional “feel good” song tossed in.
2007’s New Maps of Hell was also similar, but I could tell that they were experimenting again, just like with No Substance and The New America. This is where my expectations changed. I feel like Bad Religion considered themselves as “arrived” when New Maps of Hell came out.
How my expectations of Bad Religion changed over time
From 1999 until 2007 or so, I was a Bad Religion fanboy. They couldn’t do any wrong in my eyes. I looked up to their frontman Greg Graffin as if he was a good uncle or something.
Whether it was the fast paced rage of Bad Religion or the slower paced more personal softer stuff from Graffin’s solo efforts American Lesion and Cold as the Clay (which still stand as two of my favorite records), it didn’t matter. Bad Religion was my go-to band.
Some of this changed as early as 2004. Although I enjoyed The Empire Strikes First, another band made a record that year: The Smithereens.
You see, before I even got into ska music which then brought me to skate punk, I had a “guilty pleasure” band that I enjoyed a lot.
That band was The Smithereens. Their records were actually more difficult to find than Bad Religion’s, as it took me just about a decade for me to find anything from them.
All I owned from The Smithereens was a greatest hits record that I came across in 1995. Although I didn’t want anybody to know about it (since The Smithereens pretty much sound like early Beatles but from Jersey), I loved that record, even if it was just a greatest hits collection.
But after discovering Bad Religion and similar bands, I kind of stopped listening to The Smithereens for awhile.
This would all end when, out of curiosity, I discovered a double greatest hits record from them later in 2004. I bought it immediately.
The songs on it blew me away. I was able to relate to them much more than the material on The Empire Strikes First. And slowly, The Smithereens were gaining on Bad Religion for the “favorite band” title.
2005 sent me on a hunt for Smithereens records in the same way that 1999 sent me on a hunt for Bad Religion records. And by 2006, I was officially torn between The Smithereens and Bad Religion when it came to my favorite band of all time.
Although I enjoyed New Maps of Hell and still consider Cold as The Clay one of my favorite records of all time, I wasn’t as influenced by Bad Religion’s lyrics anymore. Thus, I started to be a little less of a fanboy.
It would be about three years until another record came out. By this time, I was listening to The Smithereens just as much as Bad Religion, and I enjoyed both the same.
The Dissent of Man came out in the fall of 2010. Different than New Maps of Hell, the record seemed kind of off to me, almost like it was a sequel to The New America. The Smithereens came out with 2011 the next year, an obvious sequel to their 1990 release 11. I also thought it was underwhelming and forgettable.
But I expected that. After all, both bands have been recording and touring since 1980. Their discographies span nearly 20 records. I was just glad that they were able to record and release a new record at all.
Not really caring about if a new Bad Religion record was going to come out at all, I was treated to True North a little after 2013 began. The record blew me away, and smacked of the late 80s/early 90s Bad Religion sound that I enjoyed so much.
True North is probably in my top 5 of Bad Religion’s discography and to slightly spoil, this new record is not a contender for that tier. True North was unexpectedly impressive, and I wouldn’t have cared if it was the band’s final record. Hell, to me everything’s been extra since The Dissent of Man.
I was kind of expecting Bad Religion to retire after True North. Everybody in the band was approaching 50 at the time. True North was their 16th full length record. How much more did they have to contribute?
I was expecting another Graffin solo record, and I got one in Millport, which came out 2 years ago. While it was a good record, it didn’t speak to me like American Lesion or Cold as the Clay did.
I was actually shocked when Age of Unreason was announced. Although I haven’t been particularly excited about any new Bad Religion records since New Maps of Hell, I was still pleased that they were at least putting out new records. Even if it has been six years. After all, I expected True North to be their final record.
In the next part, I’ll review Age of Unreason proper.
Is it as good as the other records?
Was it worth a six year wait?
Stay tuned and find out!
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