Day 40: Bad Religion – No Control
Album cover courtesy of Epitaph Records
Bad Religion is one of those bands that I haven’t really heard or listened to since my teens, they just sort of faded away from me. For no particular reason either, I just don’t really listen to any hardcore punk anymore. Not because I don’t like it, but more so because I’ve mellowed out a bit since that used to be something I enjoyed regularly. You get older and someone somewhere starts putting yacht rock on your radar instead of anything above 160 BPM. High time I venture back into my music tastes of yore.
In the name of honestly, does it also play into my choice today that the album is about 26 minutes long and it’s 23:08 and I’ve just remembered I haven’t done my album a day today? Absolutely.
Bad Religion is a punk band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1980, and they’re one of the most influential bands of the genre. They’re also still touring, 45 years after being formed. They were known as a band with melodic, harmonic songs with cerebral lyrics, jokingly getting branded as thesaurus rock in the past. The only constant member of the band since the formation of the band is the singer, Greg Graffin. Fun fact: he has a PhD in Zoology and has lectured at UCLA and Cornell.
The overarching thought that I have while listening to this is why did I stop listening to it in the first place. Practically all of the lyrics on the record are political, and I need protest music now significantly more than when I was a kid. It’s maybe a bit depressing that I need to look all the way back to 1989 when No Control was released to find music that helps me cope with modern times, but I do see why it’s not a big thing today. I just wish it was.
In “I Want to Conquer the World”, Graffin sings “I wanna conquer the world/ Give all the idiots a brand-new religion/ Put an end to poverty, uncleanliness, and toil/ Promote equality in all of my decisions”, all ideas which would land the band on some sort of a dangerous woke communist watchlist these days. It baffles me sometimes how much we’ve gone backwards, that these thoughts were semi-fine to express in the ‘80s but not necessarily today.
I enjoyed my venture back into punk music more than I expected. It’s a tight album that sounds good with a message that I can stand firmly behind, and I’m more inclined to listen to punk than I was before this. At 23:48, I have listened to this album, written this up and found myself more likely to listen to this type of music again. 7.5/10. By all accounts, 40 minutes well spent.