CD Review:

Conspiracy of One
The Offspring

   The Offspring first made a name for themselves in the early 90s with their album Smash, and songs like "Self Esteem," "Gotta Get Away," and "Come Out and Play."  Then they more or less vanished from the radar screen for a few years, only to turn up again in 1998 with Americana, an album that had a couple of goofy songs ("Pretty Fly for a White Guy," "Why Don't You Get a Job?") - neither of which was all that good - but otherwise a lot of pretty good stuff.

    But the energy that was found on Americana seems to be lacking on the group's latest, Conspiracy of One.  This is not to say that the sound is all that different - but that is exactly the problem.  While Americana and Smash have fairly different sounds, Conspiracy pretty much sounds like Americana throughout most of its songs.  This wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that none of them are as good.  It really sounds as if the band took the songs from Americana, modified some of the riffs, and changed the words, then just went back and recorded them all again.

    The album leads off with a Mike Love intro (why?), and then heads into the first song, "Come Out Swinging," which really sounds a lot like the first song on Americana, "Have You Ever."  Next up is "Original Prankster," which apparently desires to be this album's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy."  It doesn't work as well, however - despite the usage of a Redman vocal, the song doesn't make the rap crossover as well as its predecessor and so just sounds rather shameless.

    "Want You Bad" aspires to ballad status - there is no song on Americana that can be directly compared to this one, and a good thing too.  "Million Miles Away" reminded me of "Staring at the Sun" or "End of the Line," and "Dammit, I Changed Again" might as well be either of them.

    "Living in Chaos," "Special Delivery," "One Fine Day," "All Along," "Denial, Revisited," "Vultures," and the title track finish off the album.  "Special Delivery" is one of the better songs on the album, along with "One Fine Day," which is actually a somewhat goofy song that they manage to pull off.  But "All Along" is just another Americana reject, and "Denial, Revisited" is a song that seems way to slow to be on this album (it's the longest track by almost a full minute).  "Vultures" is pretty weak, and "Conspiracy of One" has the same problem as most of the tracks - it sounds just like the songs on Americana, but it's not as good as any of them.  Plus this track is no way to finish an album, unlike "Pay the Man," which was a virtual epic and an awesome closer for Americana.

    Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this album is its stupefying tendency to recycle words.  The word "change" is probably in half the songs.  Just compare these lyrics: Vultures: "It's too late for me to change"; Dammit, I Changed Again: "Nothing's changed except for me"; Million Miles Away: "What I really left behind was me."  Over and over, more of the same.  Another depressing thing is that the best part of the album is probably the CD extra, which has the four videos made of songs on Americana - "Pretty Fly for a White Guy," "Why Don't You Get a Job?," "The Kids Aren't Alright," and "She's Got Issues."

    All this is not to say necessarily that Conspiracy of One is a terrible album.  It's not great, of course, but for those of us who like the Offspring - particularly those of us who liked Americana - it's decent.  It is certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, hard to listen to.

    It'll just feel like you're listening to a crappy version of Americana. B-

Conspiracy of One is a Columbia Records release, in stores now.