While some punk bands (and I will use this term very loosely before I get set upon by Fat Mike) tend to either mature or try and push their sound in a different direction, Self Entitled is just another NoFX record. Blink 182 are no longer writing songs involving sodomising dogs and getting blown by your mom, Sum 41 are no longer the fresh faced scamps (although would you look that great with the knowledge that you lost Avril Lavigne to Chad freaking Kroeger?) and Good Charlotte are now rich and famous. Meanwhile, NoFX have put out another NoFX record. As soon as 72 Hookers explodes into life there is no chance of it being anything else. The guitar tone hasn’t changed in the last 20-odd years, which got me thinking… are NoFX the punk rock equivalent of Status Quo? (And for that remark I’m getting kicked out of Punk Rock).
Think about how Status Quo have been labelled as building a career off 3 chords, even releasing a record titled “In Search of the Fourth Chord” (I was raised on Status Quo). Meanwhile Fat Mike and co seem to have gotten away without having to change a thing. Partway through my first listen I had started singing Dinosaurs Will Die and was still waiting for Linoleum to start. I had Bob stuck in my head for a week, which was only made worse by one of the site managers being called Bob and phoning me throughout the week.
The album does have everything we have come to expect from a NoFX album; comedy, political and social commentary and self parody sometimes all rolled into one. Lets face it, how many bands could get away with writing about filling the army with sluts and hookers who could end wars and bring on world peace? There are of course serious aspects tackled, like having your children taken away and dealing with divorce but then that’s followed up by songs about ass-kissing and fragile egos. From start to finish this is purely just the latest NoFX record with no real progression from the last twenty years. Some might say that’s a good thing, but in all honesty is there anywhere that they’re going to go with their sound now, if they haven’t in all this time. Should I have actually been surprised by the fact that this has happened? I should have just gone to listen to their 1994 release Punk in Drublic instead.
