Milo Makes Me Happy: The Descendents
Insert personal anecdote about band changing life here. I can't remember. This is the problem! I know I loved them in high school, but I never saw them play, and I don't have some really exciting anecdote. I have this vague memory of being pumped in this parking lot of this Vons (SoCal grocery store) and Sav-Ons (drugs store) and Panda Express and just blasting The Descendents and feeling like a cool punk dude in a Nissan. The banality of my Descendents memory is maybe more powerful. Just some dude, just some place, just some Nissan, just some band, but over and over again everywhere. They sorta started something that became ridiculously terrible, bland, and ubiquitous: pop punk. They did it so well, though.
It did not really start with pop punk though. They started as super young high school dudes in 1979 as a three peice. They recorded a single as a three piece, and shortly after that added Milo. They became a popular live band in LA playing every punk bill they could get on. They released their first LP in 1982, Milo Goes To College, and it is my favorite punk record of all time. It is filled with youthful bombast, great songs. 
It is 22 minutes long with 16 songs, and they are all awesome. The album is about feeling like a lame dude, being different, heartbreak, losing friends to drugs, societal pressures, and feeling burned. The album optimizes what it is like to be a pretty cliched punky outsider dude feeling suburbia around you and it states it in a really awesome way. They weren't writing pop punk yet, but were injecting more melody into their songs than most other punk bands at the time, you could maybe call it melodic hardcore.
The title of the album was true, the band sorta broke up because Milo really was going to college. The thing about Milo is he was torn between punk rock and science. This has been the story for the last twenty years plus. He has traded off going to college, being back in the band, going to grad school, then more band, getting his doctorate, band, working a lab job, band. Milo rejoined the band in 85 and they they made some more music. Their songs branched in two directions, one being the proto-type for pop punk ("Silly Girl" from 1985's I Don't Want To Grow Up and "Clean Sheets" and "Pep talk" from 1987's wildly uneven but brilliant All) and a deeper prog metal style ("Iceman" and "Uranus" from All). They were smart dudes who were into punk but
wanted to sing silly songs about food and do juvenile stuff and write really amazing songs about girls and hanging out. Milo left the band again in 87 to do more fancy science stuff and the other dudes found a new singer and changed their name to All. All has put out around 10 albums with 3 different singers with some good songs, but nothing as great as The Descendents. Milo got back into music in 96 and they released their first album ,Everything Sucks, in a long time. After touring to support Everything Sucks Milo went back to the science again. 2004 sees a new Descendents album, Cool To Be You, and I'm glad they are making music and they stay make some neat pop songs but of course they are not nearly as relevant now. They were some of the first punk dudes to write about love and feelings and cute stuff and they did it so amazingly. They spawned Green Days and Blink 182s and literally thousands of other bands. They were not limited to juvenility as such poignant social songs like "Suburban Home" and "M16". They were at their best in their youth, and Milo Goes To College is the greatest punk album of all time, but even after their most awesome period they made some of the great pop songs ("Clean Sheets", "Sour Grapes") of all time. The Descendents were those dudes, those dudes on the skateboards, that kid in science class who was smart and weird, and they inspired those dudes and a ton of other dudes and they made good art. Not everything they made was inspired or interesting or great. Not everything they inspired and came after them is something I'm glad about, but still The Descendents are The Greatest Band Of All Time.
I only have an ALL album, nothing by The Descendents.
I think the lineup and name changes turned me off--like "I don't understand, how, what, who?" I'll just go listen to R.E.M...
Whu? All is nowhere near as good as the descendents. It's like Milo left, dudes still wanted to play music so they made a new band. Similar but different. How that gonna turn you off on the descendents? I could see it turning you off from all.
DID THE DESCENDENTS SUNG 'WENDY'
dEsCneDeNTS KICK ass.... wish theyre were still around...
i wish i could hear them live while skating....
id be doing
"two things at once"
AHAH
LOOK OUT
GET
OUTTA
MY
WAY
im going to the
ATOMIC CAFé
Milo has some of the most touching lyrics ever,,,they are definetly my favoriate band of all time....i even have milo tattooes on my forearm....if your unfamiliar with the descendents then i'de probably say to invest in "i dont wanna grow up" "somery" or "milo goes to college" if your a internet limewire theif then download "we" "silly girl" "sour grapes" "pervert"
Milo has some of the most touching lyrics ever,,,they are definetly my favoriate band of all time....i even have milo tattooes on my forearm....if your unfamiliar with the descendents then i'de probably say to invest in "i dont wanna grow up" "somery" or "milo goes to college" if your a internet limewire theif then download "we" "silly girl" "sour grapes" "pervert"
Descendents are awsomely great(wow how cliche of me to say on this web page) they need to have another tour soon or else i will find out where milo,bill,karl,and shit i ant remember the other guy's name but him to. iwill find out where they all live and threaten to take all there coffe away and if your a true descendets fan adn reads this you will get this unlike all you other not cool and hip down with the times people
Milo Goes To College did not onlt influence all the things that one guy said up there but it influenced the greatest rebellion ever... the rebilloin of people in school. Milo and bill wrote about how they wernt losers becasue they didnt get fucked up on coke,quaaludes, and weed.also how they did go out adn try to be populare and they wernt fucking pop well there new stuff i can see as pop-punk as you kids call it.also just angry milo and bill where fucking mad they where tired of idiots at school and douche bags so they used music to get there anger out just like a who bunch of other american hardcore bands(thats right descendents werent punk) they where american hardcore like so many bands such as minor threat, dead kennedys, circle jerks, black flag, fear, F.U.'s and many other bands that you so-called descendents fan should not hear about go fucking read there website a shit loads of times to the true fans this does not include you to noobs dont comment on this plaes dont.
i messed up on somethings
"also how they did go out adn try to be populare..."yeah i messed up there the did shoiuld be didnt and at the start of my comment i meant only not onlt
que pasaaa papaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
q pasa papaaaaaaaaaaaa .... me la suck ?
ENJOY IS THE BEST ALBUM, DESCENDENTS DO ARE IS THE BEST BAND OF ALL TIME KIDS ON COFFEE
every pop punk band & "emo" band on this planet wouldnt exist if the Descendents didnt pave the way for them, including blink & green day.... "Hope" is the single greatest anthem of all time .. plsu the many other songs they've written over the years...milo has a voice that is unmatched.. as for music talent you need to hear "theme".....& they were doing this in the early 1980's true innovators...
Having grown up with 3 of the 4 Descendents it's hard to find one great story but I do remember when I was probably a sophmore or junior in High School at Mira Costa High School and Bill and Frank had the first Descendents 7" Ride The Wild, pressed. They were selling it for 1 dollar at school. I remember Bill saying, " hey, if you want to hear a great punk band check out the Buzzcocks," so I did and the rest is history. I went and saw The Descendents every chance I could. Once we went to a backyard party on 4th of July where they played and then again to a party in the San Fernando Valley where they played all GERMS covers. They played the Germs so amazingly that it blew my mind. Milo, grabbing the side of his pants while he belted out fercious lyrics all the while Bill was pounding, and playing incredibly!!
Hank
CON/800
Nip Drivers
Social Task
I don't think that the guy that says, "who, what, where, I don't understand? I think i'll just go listen to REM," really gets that the Descendents have been around for as long or longer than REM? I know that The Descendents have been around way longer than REM has had hit records out and that Descendents have influenced bands from Greenday to Offspring to Operation Ivy to Blink 182. That's who, what, where, the Descendents are!!! Muscicians who are some of the best punk/pop/rock, writers, players,and performers that the music industry has EVER seen.
Hank
descendents one the greatest bands i listen to all the way from fat to cool to be you every descendents song gives the trendys jocks and preps a right good kick in the balls
and hey they deserve treating everyone of us little nerds like degenerates knowing we could beat them at many things
but when it comes to listening to descendents songs as a 17 year old boy (which is what i am now) you get the effect girls have on boys during school (which is actually the true effect for us mega nerds) as said above they have inspired many pop punk bands of our era and there would be no emo movement without them (sadly) but at myage (get it!) you can feel the pressure of teenage life when you listen to every song from myage all the way to orgo 51 (excluding any future albums after enjoy they dont seem as teenage) every song is full of the angst and pain of teenage nerdiness
descendents = ownage
tom
Anyone not down with The Descendents needs to get their head checked. Straight up. Best fucking band ever. I'm not all that bummed they broke up - they've left behind some of the greatest punk rock records a human being could ask for.