So why is Descendents’ Milo Goes to College on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
When I listen to a song like “Bikeage,” off of Milo Goes to College, I think about the fact that here are these Descendents kids in Southern California in the (very) early 1980s, producing punk rock music that is both wildly out of sync with the “mainstream” music of the time, and it’s impressively mature and sophisticated music that was surely influential for future generations of punk rock bands.
But throw all of that overboard and Milo Goes to College is also a punk rock album that thoroughly and expertly kicks ass in the way that punk rock is supposed to.
“Suburban Home” is my favorite Descendents song of all. It’s a minute and forty seconds of pure punk rock bliss, with as biting a message about suburban conformity as can fit into that amount of time. It’s also dizzyingly catchy and simply wonderful on a sonic level.
The sarcastic, defiant, and yet ultimately ebullient spirit of The Descendents shines (and rocks) through on “I’m Not a Punk.” And beyond the lyrics, it’s just a pure and perfect punk rock song.
I’m not a punk how can I be?
Show me the way to conformity
The melody and punk aesthetic of “I Wanna Be a Bear” reminds me much of The Suicide Machines, a band which I have great love and very high regard for.
As with The Descendents later material, many of their songs have a striking resemblance to Bad Religion, and of course the reverse is true as well. And really, that statement is another means of conveying how both bands put together expertly constructed, tight punk songs that are uniquely exciting. “Marriage” is a great example.
Also see:
- Descendents – I Don’t Want to Grow Up: #513 of best 1,000 albums ever
- Descendents – Cool To Be You: #798 of best 1,000 albums ever
- Descendents – Everything Sucks: #824 of best 1,000 albums ever
Some stats & info about Descendents – Milo Goes to College
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Punk Rock, SoCal Bands, College Rock, Pop Punk, Hardcore Punk, American Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Milo Goes to College released? 1982
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #494 out of 1,000
Descendents’ Milo Goes to College on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Descendents’ Milo Goes to College that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I wanna be stereotyped, I wanna be classified, I wanna be a clone – I want a suburban home.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.