LATE TO THE PARTY: DESCENDENTS - 'MILO GOES TO COLLEGE'

LATE TO THE PARTY is a new feature on Randon's Reviews that I'd been mulling over in my head for a little while now. In a nutshell, it involves me giving my thoughts on 'classic' albums that, up until recently, I had never heard. That's about it really.

I don't see admitting that I had never listened to the records that will eventually feature on here as a loss of integrity - I'm only a young music journalist, every day is a learning curve, and even though I do call myself a 'music journalist', that does not mean I have listened to every piece of recorded music ever. I don't even think that's even humanly possible, so yeah, lower your expectations, chumps.

I'm always up for recommendations (in this instance, I've left a list of three albums for you to choose from for the next edition at the bottom of this post), so hit me up on the RR Facebook page or on Twitter if you have a suggestion and I'll definitely consider it - unless I have actually heard it before.

In the meantime, let's get stuck in to the first record, which some of you may know as one of the most influential punk records of all time: Descendents' MILO GOES TO COLLEGE...

All that I had to go off of before diving into Milo Goes To College was Descendents' iconic mascot, photos of the band, and an understanding that this album is often regarded as one of the earliest pop-punk albums. What I was met with as soon as I hit 'Play' could not be further from my expectations. When you look at the band physically, you can't help but think that they'll have vibes of early college rock (or similar veins of alt-rock) about their sound. How wrong I was...

This is a fucking fast album. To put it into perspective, I thought it would make good listening for my commute home from college, but I was barely out of the college gates by the time the first three tracks were wrapped up. By the time I walked from campus to the train station, the album was done. I barely had time to think. It's relentless, it's raucous, and it sounds like (*cue done-to-death 'barfight' cliché*) Fugazi and The Germs having a nasty little scrap.

If you think that Milo Goes To College is just a bunch of snotty Californian kids shouting 1 2 3 4! and going apeshit for a minute and a half, before repeating said formula 14 times over, you wouldn't be miles off the money, even I thought that on my first listen. This is young, dumb, full-of-cum, stagedive-your-fucking-legs-off hardcore punk, and while Descendents are clearly not as politically antagonistic as bands like Black Flag or Dead Kennedys, Milo Goes To College are far from a stupid, gratuitously thrashy punk record.

If you're not entirely convinced by the above statement, do yourself a favour and listen to the intro to 'Tonyage': those frantic time signatures and that guitar sound is like something that I would perhaps liken to some of Biffy Clyro's artier material. Then there's the bassist, Tony Lombardo, and his work throughout the record. Forgive me, I'm no bassist, but this isn't just the same three chords over and over again: it is complex and, dare I say it, funky, and when you put it with the sheer batshit intensity of Bill Steven's drumming, you have quite simply some of the best rhythm work that I have ever heard in punk rock (sorry, Dad).

Still not convinced? The band's frontman, Milo Aukerman, has a job as a plant researcher and has a fucking doctorate in biochemistry. BOOM.

As for Milo Goes To College's status as a precursor to the wonderful thing that is pop-punk, I must admit that I could not hear a shred of poppy sensibility on first listen. I was probably too busy comprehending how fast and frank it was. The more I listened to it, however, the more I detected that razor-sharp attention to melody, especially on tracks like 'Suburban Home', which sounds like the missing link between the Ramones and Green Day. That said, Descendents still maintain that brash, hardcore edge throughout, as well as encapsulating a radical sense of suburban teenage anxiety and frustration, something which reaches a psychotic boiling point on 'Parents' ("WHY WON'T THEY SHUT UPPP?!").

I've seen the last couple of years as a real 'journey of punk rock discovery', for lack of a less twatty phrase, and even after coming across bands like Fugazi and Black Flag for the first time, I don't know why Milo Goes To College, or Descendents as a whole, has passed me by. The songs (with perhaps the exception of 'Suburban Home') haven't quite stuck in my head the way that Rancid, the Ramones and The Wildhearts did when my Dad me those records as a kid, and Descendents haven't yet resonated with me like letlive., Gallows and The King Blues did when they first bombarded into my life, but that's not to say that it's a fucking awesome punk rock record that I ended up listening to three times in a row.

If you also haven't heard Milo Goes To College (or just want to listen to it again), stream the album via Spotify below:

... And now to tackle the issue of what album will pop my aural cherry next, as it were. Below are three records which I have never heard, and I want you to choose one of them. Comment below, hit me up on Facebook, or Tweet me. Be nice or go away:

Up the punx.

Danny