Even the contemptuously crass “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” at least splits the difference in its titular complaint by offering the third verse to a woman wronged by an indolent partner. The Offspring’s transgressions in the ’90s did not exactly mirror those of their fellow radio-rockers they did not hold as explicit a strain of toxic misogyny that saddled so many of their pop-punk peers and later descendants. The rest of Americana - most of which relates to our modern predicament in far uglier ways - suggests “Pretty Fly” probably arrived at its surprising wokeness by accident. As these issues sit even tighter at the forefront of our national conversation, the song has surprisingly become more relevant than ever before. Yet the poseur-skewering indictment at least managed to align itself on the right side of history, critiquing the microaggressive antics of a white America that wears black culture while stripping it of its context. “Pretty Fly” would seem at a glance like the kind of song that would have aged poorly in our current social climate - and indeed, it would be hard to argue with anyone who senses some latent racism in Holland’s dismissal of a clueless wannabe gangster. The band didn’t single-handedly establish the late-’90s market for obnoxious frat-rock sing-alongs, but they blew it up considerably, enough so to open the doors the following year for songs like “My Name Is” and “All Star” to become national sensations. Subsequent singles “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” - a jingle-ballad vaguely reinterpreting the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as a rebuke toward a financially unsupportive partner - and the mean-spirited screed “She’s Got Issues” continued to establish the band’s aesthetic as incensed insolence. Those figures made the album nearly as successful as Smash and renewed the Offspring’s cultural omnipresence. Maddeningly hypnotic, “Pretty Fly” was responsible for a large percentage of Americana’s 10 million copies sold worldwide.
“Give it to me baby!” taunt a pair of salacious singers (one of whom was actually a voice actress in a number of beloved childhood cartoons), answered in response by backup musician Chris Higgins screaming out a squawky “Uh huh, uh huh!” “Uno, dos, tres/ Cuatro, cinco, cinco, seis!” inexplicably goes another outburst 30 seconds in, before vocalist Dexter Holland finally begins telling the sad tale of a cluelessly appropriative suburbanite over ska-crunch guitars. Launching off with a sample of the nonsense-German that counted in Def Leppard’s graceless “Rock Of Ages,” “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” only becomes more ridiculous as it goes. They had to choose between two competing visions of the Offspring, and their choice was self-evident with the release of Americana’s lead single. (Rock stations still spin “Gone Away” to this day.) But continuing to follow its more sober direction would ultimately mean giving up on the lucrative reality the band could reap by following the lead of Smash’s flagrant jock-pop. While a reversion to the mean was inevitable coming off a freak success story, the band’s alt-rock leaning, appreciably less fun follow-up Ixnay On The Hombre proved a significant step down, selling substantially less and failing to generate any singles of comparable consequence to the previous album’s “Self Esteem,” “Come Out And Play,” and “Gotta Get Away.” Ixnay, a labor of major label freedom to invest greater time and effort into their compositions, still hit the top 10 and garnered the band moderate radio play. Led by a barrage of shameless vocal hooks and Nirvana-aping guitars, Smash broke through all expectations and helped usher in the mainstream dominance of California skate punk alongside Green Day’s Dookie and Bad Religion’s Recipe For Hate. Twenty years ago, the Offspring had stumbled out of their moment. Now, while there is surely some money to be made on nostalgia streams of one-note goof-jams like “Hit That” and “Original Prankster,” make no mistake Round Hill was interested primarily in the crown jewel of Americana.
In 2015, the Offspring auctioned off the rights for their Columbia Records catalogue to Round Hill Music, a $35 million deal that included a total of six studio albums and a greatest hits LP - all released after 1994’s Smash, the group’s Epitaph breakthrough and still the best selling independent album of all time.