Bad Religion: Stranger Than Fiction

Bad Religion: Stranger Than Fiction

1994

Atlantic Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Incomplete  2. Leave Mine to Me  3. Stranger Than Fiction  4. Tiny Voices  5.The Handshake  6. Better Off Dead  7. Infected  8. Television  9. Individual  10. Hooray for Me...  11. Slumber  12. Marked  13. Inner Logic  14. What It Is  15. 21st Century (Digital Boy)

Woah, Bad Religion ups the tempos again...following the slower material of "Generator" and "Recipe for Hate" the band cranks up the speed but continue their recent pop melodicism. Is melodicism a word?

It is now...

This was released in 1994. the year punk rock actually collided with mainstream tastes. This was the same year that saw the release of   Green Day's "Dookie", the Offspring's "Smash, "  Rancid's "Let's Go," and "Punk in Drublic" by NOFX.(Not to mention, other albums that would later become 90's touchstones, like "24 Hour Revenge Therapy" by Jawbreaker and "Cheshire Cat" from a then-under-the-radar Blink 182.)   My god, what a year! I don't know what I'd do if I heard that many good punk rock records in a year now...

 I seem to remember some fear that Bad Religion's "Stranger Than Fiction" was going to be some watered-down cash-in  I think they proved everybody wrong, and actually showed the younger upstart bands how mainstream punk should sound. This is maybe the most representative  Bad Religion album, as all of the band's various modes are accounted for and in peak form...

  I think they were firing on all cylinders here and I don't think they've made an album quite as good as this since...I'm not sure if they've written a better pop-punk song than "Hooray for Me..." or the title track. I also consider "Infected" to be one of their best slow tracks, likewise, I consider "Inner Logic" and "Better Off Dead" some of their best straight-up punk pulverizers. Pretty much everything worked this time around...

The only tracks that don't bowl me over  are "Television," despite a memorable cameo from Rancid's Tim Armstrong...and the totally pointless re-recording of "21st Century Digital Boy," from "Against the Grain," but other than that this is top-notch.

This album reminds me of riding around in Pinhead's '74 Buick Apollo...

...with the windows rolled down, ridiculously huge bass cannon in the back seat..

...cruising the backwoods of Michigan with nothing to do...But things weren't always going to be this good...For there was a dark cloud on the horizon...a dark cloud called..."Sixteen Stone" by Bush...

 An album so bland it would later signal a dark era of Rock & Roll so awful it could only go by the unholy title  "Active Rock."

But we didn't  have to worry about that quite yet...we were blissfully unaware...riding around, listening to "Hooray for Me" by Bad Religion...