Punk Rock Retrospective: The Descendents' Enjoy! 1986

The Descendents, on the infamous SST label, are surely a staple in any punk rock catalog. In fact, if you haven't heard the Descendents, or heard of them for that matter, you should just go dip your head in black hair dye and drink a gallon or lighter fluid, you wimp punk-poser.

Actually, the Descendents would rather have you farted on-because that is definitely one of the dominant motifs throughout Enjoy! Enjoy! commences with the track Enjoy!, which features many of the Descendents passing gas in their own special ways. "I queef, enjoy! Smell my feces, enjoy!"

But it's not all fart sounds. Enjoy! features some of the most definitive, approachable [pop]-punk (I hate to say use that term, but here it's perfectly acceptable) of the 80's. Tracks like "Wendy," "Sour Grapes," "Cheer," and "Get the Time" come to mind. These tracks are perfect for the hardcore chick, too, and I'm not implying that they're feminine in any way.

Yet there's some real hardcore punk here too. "Hurtin' Crue" remains one of the most righteous songs ever, repeating 'Get a life, get a life, get a life.'

Getting 'a life' can also be viewed as one of the Descendents ongoing struggles throughout all of their albums; with Enjoy! as their sophomore release, this is the album that came to define what it means to be a Descendent-a major archetype in the punk rock arena, regardless of labels like [pop].

Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the emotions that transcends time for this excellent album: the lightheartedness of farting with the heart-breakingness of loving. Surely this is a contrast that comes to represent the mindset of the Descendents in a time like the 80's; it's difficult being caught between a society that rejects everything punk rock reflects, while it's also very adventurous.

Descendents' Enjoy! is definitely an album worth every punk rock penny.