“Suburban Home” – The Descendents
(Words/music: Tommy Lombardo, available on Milo Goes to College, SST 1982)

For me, the key line in the Descendents’ “Suburban Home” is the one where  Milo Aukerman sings “I wanna be masochistic.”  It’s too self-aware to suggest that “Suburban Home” is anything but tongue-in-cheek for anyone who doesn’t pick up the sarcasm from the opening “I wanna be stereotyped / I wanna be classified” line.  Ultimately, this is the suburban dilemma – assimilate into the white picket fence lifestyle or resist and stand out from your neighbors.  On an oversimplified level, it’s comfort versus individuality, and this struggle is the one that the Descendents thrash against.

Subtlety isn’t one of the Descendents’ strong points, but “Suburban Home” stomps for most of its 1:43 seconds.  The opening and closing spoken word reciting of the opening couplet helps to reinforce the song’s main point – the assimilation that suburbia thrusts upon many – and in the middle turns it into one big slamdance.  Ironically, the Descendents did anything but fade into suburbia; vocalist Milo Aukerman earned a PhD in biochemistry in between stints fronting the band.  While punk rock (in some ways) fell into blandness in the early part of this decade, the Descendents’ thrash went against the grain in 1982.

More on The Descendents: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm