Bad Religion is the thinking man’s punk band. They sure know how
\nto articulate the anger that punk music is supposed to be about
\nbetter than most I’ve heard. They also have better musical chops
\nthan most punk bands with two very capable guitarists in Greg
\nHetson and Brett Gurewitz (who likes to be known as Mr. Brett) who
\ngive them a fuller sound. Also, they employ harmonies in their
\nsongs, which was not very common for the genre.<\/p>\n
But it was bands like Offspring and Green Day that took the
\nbasic Bad Religion sound to pop success. Although Bad Religion
\nthemselves did not reap in that success, they did manage to get
\nsigned onto a large label: Atlantic Records.
\nGenerator<\/i>, released in 1992, was their last album for
\nEpitaph Records.<\/p>\n
Things get off to an explosive start with the title song.
\n“Generator” is fast, noisy, with pulsating bass lines from Jay
\nBentley and exhilarating drumming from Bobby Schayer. The guitar
\nsolos are fine yet economical. The next song “Too Much To Ask” is
\nmuch of the same, only faster. In fact, the whole first half of the
\nCD keeps up the fast pace with only varying degrees of speed. The
\nlead singer is Greg Graffin who sounds sort of like Green Day’s
\nBillie Joe Armstrong with just a touch of Husker Du’s Bob Mould
\n(who no doubt is an influence on this band).<\/p>\n
Graffin and Mr. Brett share songwriting duties on
\nGenerator<\/i>. Lyrically, I like Graffin’s “No Direction” which
\ntells the listeners to be individuals and not follow celebrities
\nwhether it is Madonna (mentioned in the song) or Bad Religion
\nthemselves as the chorus warns: “You’ll get no direction from me.”
\nAnd even more compelling is Mr. Brett’s “Two Babies In The Dark”
\nwhich tells the story of a mother raising her two kids after the
\nfather has left them.<\/p>\n
Bad Religion does have a few musical tricks for the second half
\nof the CD. The harmonies to the chorus of “Atomic Garden” remind me
\nof the Mamas and Papas song “California Dreamin'” even though the
\nrest of the song could not be more opposite in sound and attitude.
\n“The Answer” is a parable slowed down to more of a midtempo pop
\nlevel. And then there’s the last song on the album: “Only
\nEntertainment.” With its appealing rhythm guitar part and hooky
\nchorus, this could have been a great single, that is, if it wasn’t
\nsuch a diatribe of the entertainment industry. This sense of irony
\ngives the album a much needed playful quality. But it might be too
\nlittle too late.<\/p>\n
The flaws I see in
\nGenerator<\/i> are as follows: while Graffin’s vocals are crystal
\nclear so you can hear pretty much every word, I wish he had more of
\nMould’s or Kurt Cobain’s growl to put some of the songs over. The
\ntrouble is he has so many words to spit out, he cannot afford to
\nshow any vocal range. And that brings up the second flaw, I think
\nthe band is just a tad too earnest. Sure, they have some important
\nthings to say, but they seem to take themselves too seriously, and
\nafter awhile the lyrics come off as too preachy. They should
\nremember, it’s only entertainment.<\/p>\n
To me, these flaws keep this album from being in the same league
\nas the best from either Nirvana or Husker Du. Still,
\nGenerator<\/i> is a solid effort from Bad Religion and is worth a
\nlisten for several excellent cuts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":24756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5960],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-35960","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bad-religion","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35960"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35960"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}