Watch: The Offspring’s “Shit Is Fucked Up”
After a stint of sub-par animated music videos, The Offspring either heard the fan outcry, or simply decided to take a step back to square one. The west coast band’s latest single is probably one of the best and most aggressive tracks from last year’s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. Superlatives speak volumes in light of said album’s lukewarm presence, and “Shit Is Fucked Up” marks a return to The Offspring’s performance video roots.
This throwback exhibition bears anthem punk rock similar to Green Day’s “East Jesus Nowhere”, but with a decidedly more signature Californian flare that the band is well versed in. During the bridge, a double-time rant against everything society holds dear chimes in (think “Americana” on caffeine) and is the closest anyone will get to pre-Conspiracy era Dexter Holland. At the very least one can be thankful there is now a video to overshadow “Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?”.
Meanwhile, back at the peanut gallery, all of our everyday iconic American loonies were released to perform between shots of the band playing in sepia tone, while Holland’s gives a mock presidential address (as seen in The Offspring’s tour announcement). The video for “Shit Is Fucked Up” showcases any remaining essence of this band’s early work while shimmering with rock radio appeal and occasionally sophomoric pop culture satire.
In short, The Offspring has actually made an altogether entertaining music video. So, leave your cynical brain at the laundromat and drop into this insanity full throttle.
Despite being a grosse-out for a lot of it’s length, I must admit that this video puts a smile on the face and is deffinately an improvement over the animated videos that the band has cursed itself with occasionally over the previous few years.
That said, I think they’ve chosen one of the poorest songs on the album to do it with. The mono-tonal-average-too-close-to-Greenday song is fun, but not really good enough for an Offspring single. As the hordes of rock-obsessed-genre-nerds crashed down on anything un-punk on the Offspring’s last 3 albums it has resulted in the loss of the poppier sounds on Rise & Fall which leaves it sounding less varied. This song unfortunately demonstrates that all too clearly. Where the Offsprings most fun songs used to be enlivened by imaginative production and sounds, this sounds like another tired rock song to appeal to the dumb masses. Once again, in a very modern Greenday manner.