Making A Case For NOFX (by Lee Morton and Brett Coomer)

Here's part three of our new series – Making A Case For. In this series, two of the CPRW team take a classic punk rock band and put forward their argument as to why their choice of album is the band’s best. Today, Lee and Brett nominate the best NOFX album.

Making A Case For Punk In Drublic (Lee Morton)

Cast your mind back to 1994, the grunge era is on its last legs and nu-metal is just taking off. Both Green Day and The Offspring have broken punk into the mainstream conscious with the release of “Dookie” and “Smash” respectively and DIY punks NOFX released their fifth, and still their most successful album to date, “Punk In Drublic”.

Against the introverted grunge scene and toxic masculinity of nu-metal, the juvenile humour mixed with short, sharp hook laden tracks that make up “Punk In Drublic” was a much needed adrenaline shot in the arm of the DIY punk scene. Streamlining the more hardcore punk of their earlier releases, this album, more than any others since, truly captures the spirit of NOFX and laid the template for all their future albums.

With sales in excess of 1 million copies worldwide, despite limited radio play or music TV coverage, it is one of the most successful independent album releases of all-time and effectively saved Epitaph Records as well as ensuring the growth of Fat Wreak Chords, with both labels becoming synonymous with mid-90s punk.

If the numbers aren’t enough to justify this as their greatest release, then what about the songs? One look at the track-listing and it reads like a greatest hits set, which in effect is what it is. Fan favourites such as “Linoleum”, “Leave It Alone” and “The Brews” are live constants and almost perfect punk songs, but dig deeper and there’s plenty of meat to get your teeth into with racism in their sights on “Don’t Call Me White” and “The Brews” whilst politics get shot down too with “Perfect Government”.

In fact, “Perfect Government” paved the way for NOFX to become more political with future releases, such as “The Decline” which Brett will wax lyrically about but the fact is, would they have even made that record without the foundations laid down in “Punk In Drublic”?

The influence that this record has made on other bands is without question, having inspired many good, and not so good bands, to pick up instruments but by also incorporating ska and reggae into their sound they helped keep the flames of these genres burning during some lean years.

Now, if none of this helps convince you that this was their finest hour then I shall leave the last word to guitarist El Hefe, who told the Associated Press in 2014 that “to me, that was our best album” so if he thinks that then it must be true.

Making A Case For The Decline (Brett Coomer)

In 1999, NOFX was one of the biggest punk bands on the planet that wasn’t being played on mainstream radio or TV and had been together for over 15 years. So one would expect the band to release an album with more of the same short, fast, snotty punk songs that built their establishment. Instead, according to the band they had “done enough short songs, time for a long one” and at 18-and-a-bit minutes ‘The Decline’ is definitely the longest song in the band’s catalogue and one of the longest punk songs ever recorded.

‘The Decline’ is only one song, but it has more dynamics and musical nuance than a lot of albums made up of 9 or more 2-plus minute songs. The song starts off as any normal NOFX song would, with some bass chords ringing out over a fast hi-hat beat, and very quickly makes you think of a typical punk rock song. But, with the help of some seamless key and time signature changes throughout its 18 minutes, ‘The Decline’ takes the listener on a journey through what can only be described as movements, each with its own distinct feel, while still contributing to and staying consistent with the theme. It never shies too far away from the NOFX sound though, featuring all of the characteristics you’d expect on any NOFX album: blazingly fast drum beats, frantic but fluent bass lines, awesome yelling backing vocals from Eric Melvin, and a number of guitar solos from El Hefe. Much like the music, the lyrics tell a few different stories and offer a range of attacks, both metaphorical and blatant, on the state of the American government, policies and the general decline of society. All themes that are mostly still valid today.

Choosing a single favourite album from a band like NOFX with such a large catalogue of music is always going to be a challenge. I’m almost positive that if you surveyed everyone at a NOFX concert you’d get a bunch of votes for each of their albums (maybe with the exception of Liberal Animation) with perhaps two or three outliers like Punk In Drublic, Wolves in Wolves Clothing, and So Long And Thanks for All The Shoes, which are all really great albums and worthy of the praise but they all still have one flaw in common: filler.

The question may be asked: Is it a song? Is it a punk rock opera? Is it an EP? Is it an album? Who cares. Whichever label you’d like to place on ‘The Decline’ by NOFX, it takes nothing away from the fact that it is an impressive piece of music released by one of the most prolific, divisive, and infamous bands of modern punk rock and remains an achievement of epic proportions even 21 years after it was first released.

P.S. The vinyl is more than just one song, as the B-side features a demo version of a more traditional length and sounding NOFX song, perhaps to remind everyone that the band hadn’t completely lost touch with their short fast punk roots.

This feature was written by Lee Morton and Brett Coomer.