After looking at the heavy rock festival Download, I wanted to see if there were any different artists I would like that have appeared at the plethora of heavy rock festivals around the world this year. Another massive rock and metal festival is Hellfest in France. Yes, as the silly celebrity DJ Khaled would say (I don’t really care about his music) – another one!

To me it seems heavier than Download, not having the same lighter acts such as Green Day headlining last year and bands like Ash and Feeder – so I’m not as interested. Download even had boyband Five as this year’s silly pop act – moshpits were started to their music! However, a similar moment happened during The Offspring’s headlining set at Hellfest that I had to cover…

The Offspring are quite a strange band for me. They are commonly seen as a one of the main players in the ’90s pop-punk movement, along with Green Day and Blink-182. However, I wouldn’t call them pop-punk at all, I would call them pop/punk…

This is because the majority of their albums are comprised of harder punk than those other massive ’90s bands. It’s minor-key, and to my ears features a lot of hard rock/metal inspired riffs and a fast skate punk drumbeat. That’s the punk side of the band – I can see why they headlined the heavier Hellfest Festival.

The pop side of the band is found in the insane amount of silly/joke songs they stuff every album with! These include massive hits like “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” and “Why Don’t You Get a Job.” They are basically either a punk band or a pop band, not a blend of the two like Green Day and Blink.

However, going through their discography, there is a playlist (or two) worth of traditional pop-punk songs, in my opinion. The fun major-key melodies, distorted power chords and fast drumbeats – the basis set by bands like Ramones. I do love their joke and ska songs too – and will do a specific playlist of them someday – but I thought I’d keep this playlist strictly pop-punk. I don’t like most of their harder punk songs – they sound quite angsty and I can’t dance to them!

Thus, here is my Offspring pop-punk playlist, which contains a lot of silly songs as it is. I wanted to display my interesting thoughts on the band’s varied discography before looking at the hilarious moment that happened at Hellfest.

1. Time to Relax (silly intro)
2. Walla Walla
3. No Brakes
4. She’s Got Issues
5. Americana
6. Want You Bad
7. One Fine Day
8. Denial, Revisited
9. Half-Truism
10. Nothingtown
11. Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?
12. Let’s Hear It For Rock Bottom
13. Rise And Fall
14. Fix You (not the Coldplay song)
15. Days Go By
16. I Wanna Secret Family (With You)
17. All I Have Left Is You
18. In The Hall Of The Mountain King (Interlude)
19. Make It All Right
20. Ok, But This Is The Last Time
21. Truth In Fiction (a heavier yet still danceable track to end the playlist in a humorous style – almost reminds me of Motörhead)