Milo Goes to College
Encyclopedia
Milo Goes to College is the debut album by the Manhattan Beach, California
-based punk rock
band the Descendents
, released in 1982 through New Alliance Records
. Its mix of fast and aggressive hardcore punk
with melody and cheeky love songs led to it being considered one of the most significant albums of the early 1980s southern California hardcore punk movement.
in June 1982 the band worked at Total Access studio in Redondo Beach, California
with Spot
, who had also engineered and produced the Fat EP. While still short and fast, the songs on Milo Goes to College were also melodic. Singer Milo Aukerman
later reflected: "It's interesting: we started very melodic, then moved to hardcore, but melded the two at a certain point and became melodic hardcore
."
The album's title and cover illustration referenced Aukerman's departure from the band to study biology
at the University of California, San Diego
. The illustration was done by Jeff Atkinson, based on earlier caricature
s by a high school classmate of Aukerman's named Roger Deuerlein, who had drawn comic strips and posters depicting Aukerman as the class nerd
. The illustration was later re-interpreted by other artists for the covers of I Don't Want to Grow Up
, Everything Sucks
, "I'm the One", "When I Get Old
", 'Merican
, and Cool to Be You
. A note on the back of the LP read "In dedication to Milo Aukerman from the Descendents", and was signed by the other three members. Aukerman later recalled that the band took his departure in stride:
The Descendents continued performing for a time during 1982 and 1983, initially with Ray Cooper
on vocals, then occasionally with Aukerman on his return visits to Los Angeles, after Cooper moved to rhythm guitar
. The band then went on hiatus until 1985, when Aukerman returned for the recording of I Don't Want to Grow Up.
In 1987 New Alliance was sold to SST Records
, who re-released Milo Goes to College on cassette
and compact disc
. It was also reissued in 1988 as part of the compilation album
Two Things at Once
.
, author Steven Blush
remarked that its "cheeky love songs disguised as [hardcore] blasts became the most aped formula in rock." Ned Raggett of Allmusic gave the album four and a half stars out of five, calling it "an unpretentious, catchy winner. The playing of the core band is even better than before, never mistaking increased skill with needing to show off; the Lombardo/Stevenson rhythm section is in perfect sync, while Navetta provides the corrosive power. Add in Aukerman's in-your-face hilarity and f*ck-off stance, and it's punk rock that wears both its adolescence and brains on its sleeve." Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone
called the album "all straight-ahead punk -- 15 songs in less than a half hour, each full of metally riffs and lightning-speed plucking by bassist Tony Lombardo, who was always the band's secret weapon. Much like the Who
, Descendents often used the bass for melodies and the guitar to bash out a steady rhythm. 'Parents' shows a British punk influence, with Auckerman spitting the complaint: 'They don't even know I'm a boy/They treat me like a toy, but little do they know that one day I'll explode.
Milo Goes to College has been included in several lists of noteworthy punk albums. Spin
has listed it several times, ranking it #74 in a 1995 list of the best alternative
albums and #20 in a 2001 list of "The 50 Most Essential Punk Records", and including it in a 2004 list of "Essential Hardcore" albums. In these lists, critic Simon Reynolds
described the album as "Fifteen Cali-core paroxysms that anatomize dork-dude pangs with haiku
brevity", while Andrew Beaujon called it "Super clean, super tight, super poppy hardcore about hating your parents, riding bikes, and not wanting to 'smell your muff.' Obviously, Blink-182
owe this bunch of proud California losers everything." In 2006 Kerrang!
ranked it as the 33rd greatest punk album of all time.
Manhattan Beach, California
Manhattan Beach is the wealthiest beachfront city located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, USA. The city is on the Pacific coast, south of El Segundo, and north of Hermosa Beach. Manhattan Beach is the home of both beach and indoor volleyball, and surfing. During the winter, the...
-based punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band the Descendents
Descendents
The Descendents are an American punk rock band from Hermosa Beach, California. As of 2011, they have released six studio albums, three live albums, three compilation albums and three EPs. The Descendents broke up and reformed several times over the years, sometimes with different musicians...
, released in 1982 through New Alliance Records
New Alliance Records
New Alliance Records was the record label founded by The Minutemen's D. Boon and Mike Watt and longtime friend and associate Martin Tamburovich after the example of Black Flag's SST Records...
. Its mix of fast and aggressive hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
with melody and cheeky love songs led to it being considered one of the most significant albums of the early 1980s southern California hardcore punk movement.
Background
Milo Goes to College followed the Descendents' 1981 Fat EP, a record which had established the band's presence in the southern California hardcore punk movement with its short, fast, aggressive songs. For the recording of their first LPLP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
in June 1982 the band worked at Total Access studio in Redondo Beach, California
Redondo Beach, California
Redondo Beach is one of the three Beach Cities located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 66,748 at the 2010 census, up from 63,261 at the 2000 census. The city is located in the South Bay region of the greater Los Angeles area.Redondo Beach was originally part of...
with Spot
Spot (producer)
SPOT, , was the house producer and engineer for the influential independent punk record label SST Records. He recorded, mixed, produced or co-produced for most of SST's pivotal acts between 1979 and 1985...
, who had also engineered and produced the Fat EP. While still short and fast, the songs on Milo Goes to College were also melodic. Singer Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman is an American singer, songwriter and research biochemist. Aukerman is perhaps most widely known for being the lead singer of the early Los Angeles area punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be pioneers of modern "pop punk"...
later reflected: "It's interesting: we started very melodic, then moved to hardcore, but melded the two at a certain point and became melodic hardcore
Melodic hardcore
Melodic hardcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk with a strong emphasis on vocal melody. The genre is commonly defined with fast hardcore drum beats, complex guitar riffs and melodic singing with occasional screaming and shouting.-History:...
."
The album's title and cover illustration referenced Aukerman's departure from the band to study biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
. The illustration was done by Jeff Atkinson, based on earlier caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
s by a high school classmate of Aukerman's named Roger Deuerlein, who had drawn comic strips and posters depicting Aukerman as the class nerd
Nerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...
. The illustration was later re-interpreted by other artists for the covers of I Don't Want to Grow Up
I Don't Want to Grow Up
I Don't Want to Grow Up is the second album by the Manhattan Beach, California-based punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1985 through New Alliance Records...
, Everything Sucks
Everything Sucks (Descendents album)
Everything Sucks is the fifth studio album by the punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1996 through Epitaph Records. It was their first album of new studio material since 1987's All, after which singer Milo Aukerman had left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry...
, "I'm the One", "When I Get Old
When I Get Old
"When I Get Old" is a song by the punk rock band the Descendents, released as the second single from their 1996 album Everything Sucks. The single also includes "Sick-O-Me" from the album and "Gotta", a B-side written by and featuring the band's original bassist Tony Lombardo.The music video for...
", 'Merican
'Merican
Merican is an EP by the punk rock band the Descendents, released February 10, 2004. It was the band's first release for Fat Wreck Chords and served as a pre-release to their sixth studio album Cool to Be You, released the following month...
, and Cool to Be You
Cool to Be You
Cool to Be You is the sixth studio album by the punk rock band the Descendents, released in 2004 through Fat Wreck Chords. It was their first album of new studio material since 1996's Everything Sucks, which had been released through Epitaph Records...
. A note on the back of the LP read "In dedication to Milo Aukerman from the Descendents", and was signed by the other three members. Aukerman later recalled that the band took his departure in stride:
When I decided to go to college, the guys in the band were pretty hip on it because they knew how big of a nerd I was. Like, "What else would you expect him to do but to go off and be a nerd?" I mean, I've got a Ph.D in biochemistryBiochemistryBiochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
— how uncool is that?
The Descendents continued performing for a time during 1982 and 1983, initially with Ray Cooper
Ray Cooper
Ray Cooper is an English musician. He is a session and road-tour percussionist, and occasional actor, who has worked with several musically diverse bands and artists including George Harrison, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, and Elton John. Cooper is commonly regarded by music fans, critics and fellow...
on vocals, then occasionally with Aukerman on his return visits to Los Angeles, after Cooper moved to rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
. The band then went on hiatus until 1985, when Aukerman returned for the recording of I Don't Want to Grow Up.
In 1987 New Alliance was sold to SST Records
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...
, who re-released Milo Goes to College on cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
and compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
. It was also reissued in 1988 as part of the compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
Two Things at Once
Two Things at Once
Two Things at Once is a compilation album by the Los Angeles-based punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1988 through SST Records. It combines the band's 1982 debut album Milo Goes to College with the 1985 release Bonus Fat, itself a compilation 1981's Fat EP, 1979's "Ride the Wild" / "It's a...
.
Reception
Milo Goes to College is often cited as one of the most significant albums of the southern California hardcore punk movement during the early 1980s. In his book American Hardcore: A Tribal HistoryAmerican Hardcore: A Tribal History
American Hardcore: A Tribal History is a book by Steven Blush detailing the history of the early hardcore punk music scene.The book was the basis of the documentary American Hardcore directed by Paul Rachman and written by Steven Blush....
, author Steven Blush
Steven Blush
Steven Blush is an American author, publisher and promoter.His book American Hardcore: A Tribal History was released in 2001 through Feral House publishing. The film version, American Hardcore, was released September 22, 2006...
remarked that its "cheeky love songs disguised as [hardcore] blasts became the most aped formula in rock." Ned Raggett of Allmusic gave the album four and a half stars out of five, calling it "an unpretentious, catchy winner. The playing of the core band is even better than before, never mistaking increased skill with needing to show off; the Lombardo/Stevenson rhythm section is in perfect sync, while Navetta provides the corrosive power. Add in Aukerman's in-your-face hilarity and f*ck-off stance, and it's punk rock that wears both its adolescence and brains on its sleeve." Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
called the album "all straight-ahead punk -- 15 songs in less than a half hour, each full of metally riffs and lightning-speed plucking by bassist Tony Lombardo, who was always the band's secret weapon. Much like the Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
, Descendents often used the bass for melodies and the guitar to bash out a steady rhythm. 'Parents' shows a British punk influence, with Auckerman spitting the complaint: 'They don't even know I'm a boy/They treat me like a toy, but little do they know that one day I'll explode.
Milo Goes to College has been included in several lists of noteworthy punk albums. Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
has listed it several times, ranking it #74 in a 1995 list of the best alternative
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
albums and #20 in a 2001 list of "The 50 Most Essential Punk Records", and including it in a 2004 list of "Essential Hardcore" albums. In these lists, critic Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
described the album as "Fifteen Cali-core paroxysms that anatomize dork-dude pangs with haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
brevity", while Andrew Beaujon called it "Super clean, super tight, super poppy hardcore about hating your parents, riding bikes, and not wanting to 'smell your muff.' Obviously, Blink-182
Blink-182
Blink-182 is an American rock band consisting of vocalist and bass guitarist Mark Hoppus, vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. They have sold over 27 million albums worldwide since forming in Poway, California in 1992...
owe this bunch of proud California losers everything." In 2006 Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
ranked it as the 33rd greatest punk album of all time.
Track listing
Band
- Milo AukermanMilo AukermanMilo Aukerman is an American singer, songwriter and research biochemist. Aukerman is perhaps most widely known for being the lead singer of the early Los Angeles area punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be pioneers of modern "pop punk"...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Tony LombardoTony LombardoTony Lombardo was the bassist with the pioneering punk rock band Descendents between 1978 and 1985. Lombardo was part of the original Descendents lineup with guitarist Frank Navetta and drummer Bill Stevenson.-Early years with Descendents:...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Frank NavettaFrank NavettaFrank Navetta was a guitarist for the Southern California punk rock band Descendents. He was part of the band's original lineup and played with the band for six years. He formed the Descendents with Tony Lombardo and Bill Stevenson in 1979 and released the single "Ride the Wild"/"It's a Hectic...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Bill Stevenson – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Production
- SpotSpot (producer)SPOT, , was the house producer and engineer for the influential independent punk record label SST Records. He recorded, mixed, produced or co-produced for most of SST's pivotal acts between 1979 and 1985...
– producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, engineer - Jeff Atkinson – cover artwork