Day 168: Descendents – Milo Goes to College

Short album and short-ish write-up today. Milo Goes to College by the Descendents is only 22 minutes long, which is just about how much I have the energy for today. Very rarely do I just have nothing in the tank when it comes to listening to music and/or writing, but today is that day.

Album cover courtesy of New Alliance Records

The Descendents are an American punk band who were formed in 1977 in Manhattan Beach, California. They released their debut album Milo Goes to College in 1982, and it’s seen as a formative album to the pop punk genre. It’s named after singer Milo Aukerman had decided to go to university to study biology. Milo eventually went to college so hard that he got a PhD and was an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware, but he announced in 2016 that he’s giving up his research career for music.

I feel like I’ve seen the album cover a million times but I haven’t listened to them before and don’t know anything about the Descendents. They’re good, but it’s not strictly speaking my thing. It’s a bit too poppy for my liking and I’m about 20 years too long in the tooth to appreciate a song about how parents just don’t understand. It does sound mostly good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just entirely the wrong audience for it.

It’s not a very serious album, reflecting the fact that it was recorded by a group of guys who’d just graduated. It’s chock full of irony and songs about girls being slutty or about wanting to be a bear. Frankly, who among us hasn’t thought about it? I probably just want to spend all my time somewhere on a riverside in a forest and eat salmon and berries and have a chill time, which I could probably also do as a person.

It’s a fun-ish foray into pop punk history, but I just feel like that’s a genre with a very clear expiration date. I can appreciate that the songs are pretty good and listening to it as a teenage boy must feel like teenaged Fiona Apple listening does to my ilk, but this one is just not for me. 6.5/10.