Bad Religion: Generator

Bad Religion: Generator

1992

Epitaph Records

Format I Own it on:  Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Generator  2. Too Much to Ask  3. No Direction  4. Tomorrow  5. Two Babies in the Dark  6. Heaven Is Falling  7. Atomic Garden  8. The Answer  9. Fertile Crescent  10. Chimaera  11. Only Entertainment  Bonus Tracks: 12. Fertile Crescent (alternate version)  13. Heaven Is Falling (alternate version)

I think I said yesterday that "Against the Grain" was my favorite Bad Religion album, but after listening to it back to back with this I'm not so sure...This is definitely slower than any of the previous releases but the songs are so catchy that I don't really care...I guess if  all you care about is speed and don't pay attention to songwriting or melody this could seem inferior...Hard saying....

But this is a cool album. It seems to have a darker tone, and they get more adventurous with the arrangements, adding lots of little guitar detail, complex vocal harmonies, and the piano comes back for "Atomic Garden."  I love "Atomic Garden" by the way,  one of my favorite B.R. track. At first glance it may seem a little dated with the references to Cold War and Gorbachev., but really just  change the names around a bit and I think the sentiment still holds up... I can recall seeing the video for this song back in the day on 120 minutes...I think this was probably the first Bad Religion song I ever heard...Is it lame that I learned about Bad Religion from MTV?

 oh well, fuck it.

You know...I also remember reading about the band a looong time ago in RIP magazine? Anyone else remember that magazine?! I used to have a subscription for it...it was awesome! It mostly had articles and photos of hair metal and heavy metal bands...with some punk and alternative bands tossed in for variety....

Here are some pictures from RIP magazine....

 (Woah! You used to be able to put Jackyl on the cover of a magazine...and people would buy it...Hell, I would buy it!)

 (Kiss my Sassafrass!)

 (This one really makes you think..."Is there Life on Lars?" If you look at this one really closely there's tons of funny stuff..."Poison gets serious for the 90's!" "Sebastian Bach Part 2" Like Sebastian Bach had so many profound things to say that it took two magazines just to hold it all...)

Okay, back to "Generator," like I said,  there's a distinctly darker tone to this,  which could stem from the fact that it takes on the Gulf War that was still raging back in 1992, "Heaven is Falling," in particular is a beautiful indictment, and another favorite of mine...Really the only songs on this I've ever skipped are maybe "Chimaera" and  "Two Babies in the Dark," which has the redeeming line:

"I'll put you to sleep at night,
Like a Foreign Movie..."

That's a pretty great line, although I don't exactly agree with the statement. I usually  find Foreign movies thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating. Why just the other night I was watching Godzilla Vs Megalon and found it to be food for the spirit...

The title-track is just an iconic punk song...Who can forget throwing this on for the first time and hearing...

"Like a Rock...Like a Planet...Like a Fucking atom Boooomb!"

That still gets me to this day...So let's play it again...Ladies and Gentlemen..."Generator" by Bad Religion...