It's punk-fifteen in the morning. Outside the Dillards in Cordova Mall, in the year 2000, is a record store whose name I can't remember. But I was browsing the stacks of records, CDs and cassettes, looking to spend my hard-earned cash from my lowly menial job. It was on that random March day I picked up both The New America and Recipe for Hate by Bad Religion.
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| Copyright Atlantic Records |
I was well already a fan, hearing them on KROQ while passing through almost a decade earlier while moving from Hawai'i to Alabama, and then later Northwest Florida (the hellhole of Pensacola, to be exact. IYKYK). During the 90s and early 2000s, Pensacola was (and might still be) a dreary tourist and military blackhole of desperation. So of course, some punk rock would make it better, right?
My initial impressions of the record were positive. It was more melodic than previous records (like the copy of Recipe for Hate I picked up at the same time). I also found the songs to be less directly political, and also positive and uplifting. I know a lot of fans like shitting on The New America for not being like most of Bad Religion's other records. But, for me, that is one thing that stood out to my ears.
I appreciate that they've often taken risks with their music and have been open to trying new approaches, while still adhering to their roots. I guess it's a slippery slope for bands, since any deviation from The Formula can get them labeled as sellouts or plants or whatever.
Is it one of my favorite albums? Maybe. That's hard to say. My relationship with music has changed over the years, as I'm sure it has for many of us that are middle aged. We've gone from an age where discovery happened through the radio, recommendations from friends and record store clerks, listening to tracks in the booth at the record shop, and just buying albums randomly (at least, that's how a lot of it happened for me). Nowadays, we have music on demand through the streaming platform of your choice. You can go to sites like Bandcamp and buy directly from musicians.
What I can say is that for many years it was on heavy rotation in my collection. Partly, because of my limited access to music. Streaming was in its infancy and all of us were downloading music, movies and porn from Napster and LimeWire and other, less savory, sites. And you couldn't always trust the seeds, so you'd get viruses of course, but also incorrectly labeled media, or things that were just plain wrong. Putting money towards music meant either buying, bootlegging or stealing records. And of course, you'd pay to see bands live when you could, even with Pensacola's shitty music scene in the 90s and 2000s.
But we're digressing from what I want to say. I was listening through the album again this morning, and it made me reflect on how my relationship with the music has changed over 26 years of listening.
A lot of it sounds just as applicable today as it did back in 2000. "You've Got a Chance," "Long Way to the Promised Land," and "New America" still smack of that hardscrabble optimism I felt when listening to it as a young man. These tracks acknowledge that shit sucks, but what the fuck are you going to do about it? It's a challenge to get engaged and confront what you want to see change within yourself and the world.
It's nothing new with Bad Religion, in my opinion. Maybe it's just repackaged with just a bit more hope? Or maybe it's the almond mom approach of manifestation? I feel like we've been hearing the band bang this drum with earlier songs like "Leaders and Followers," for instance.
The other half of the tracks feel weirdly prophetic. Or maybe that's just human nature and our cyclical way of living. "I Love My Computer" meant to capture our obsession with computing through the 90s and into the New Millenium, but it could easily (EASILY) apply to the unhealthy relationship many people are creating through their use of generative AI. It's eerie how the lyrics mirror the kinds of substitute relationships people are forming with agents they treat as their "girlfriend" or "boyfriend," and the sick developers that engineer this kind of digital crack.
"Queen of the 21st Century" is another track that mirrors this feeling. I didn't come to it until later in life since it was a bonus track on the Japanese and Euro releases. To me, it reads like a follow up to "21st Century (Digital Boy)." And both tracks make me think of how we've (Boomers, Gen X, Millennials) cultivated a lot of the perceived problems we see in Gen Z and Gen Alpha. If we want to critisize Boomers as the selfish Me Generation, we have no room to criticize today's youth for any self-indulgence, since we've paved an attractive path for them to follow. We truly are the architects of our own fate, and it's amazing to me how people like Greg Gaffin and Mike Pondsmith (of Cyberpunk TTRPG fame) have been able to look so clearly to the future and see the dangerous roads we're treading.
To close out, my favorite track remains "It's a Long Way to the Promised Land," and "New America." It reminds me that the path to liberation and freedom for all is an on-going battle, and that we need a coalition of people to make it happen. I think we often forget, especially with despots like Trump in power, that we projected the same kind of rhetoric on figures like George W. Bush when this record was new. And nowadays, a lot of people just look at him like a goofy uncle that has some weird ideas but is mostly harmless. And it's that kind of thinking that got us to where we are today, for weal or woe.
A final honorable mention goes to "The Hopeless Housewife," for echoing many of the same thoughts above. It contains that same kind of criticism and breakdown of just living one's life adrift while needing to do more to become more:
Damn your transcendental paralysis
We can work together and make sense of this
Don't be so sure you can chuck it all away
You've got to proceed, no matter how bad you wanna stay
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