Smash!: Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid, Nofx, and the '90s Punk Explosion

Smash!: Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid, Nofx, and the '90s Punk Explosion by Ian Winwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you're looking for an encyclopedia entry explaining how punk went mainstream in the 90s, this is not the book for you. This distills down the era to the core bands - Green Day, The Offspring, Operation Ivy/Rancid, NOFX and Bad Religion, along with the key players and labels, namely Epitaph and Lookout. In revisiting, the most interesting aspect to me was The Offspring, who managed to be wildly successful yet, without a second act like Green Day's "American Idiot," have fallen down the musical memory hole for not being serious enough, despite being more successful than most 90s bands.

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