Robbed hit of the week 9/6/21 - The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)"...

 

 

"Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" - The Offspring

from the album Americana (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #53 (two weeks)

 

This week's robbed hit comes from the band the Offspring, who had sailed the wave of the "pop punk" movement with Green Day and Sublime in the summer of 1994 with their top-40 pop radio hit "Come Out And Play (Keep 'Em Separated)". Their third album Smash, which sprung that song, went to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales chart and sold over six million copies. The group's next record, and first on Columbia Records, Ixnay On The Hombre, which landed a #1 rock radio hit with "Gone Away" which also made it to #50 on the Hot 100 Airplay list, also made the top ten but sold considerably less.

The Offspring returned in 1998 with their second Columbia effort Americana. The lead single from the set, "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)", had more in common with their breakthrough hit than its use of parentheses. Gleaning on the humor in lead singer Dexter Holland's lyrics, and bandmates Kevin Wasserman, Greg Kressel, and Ron Welty's musical punch, the song totally burns the suburban kids that attempt to act "street" without having any of the knowledge, perspective, or history. It was as smart as it was hilarious, and the MTV-ready music video really drove the message home, as does Dexter's speak-singing of the verses before stepping on the gas in the chorus...

While "Pretty Fly" returned the Offspring to the top ten on the rock radio chart on both the Mainstream (#5) and Alternative (two weeks at #3) formats, the song stalled under the halfway mark on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart in January of 1999. This was most likely because despite the rock radio embrace, and limited mainstream spins, a lack of a commercial single really hindered it. But I'm sure the record company did this to goose sales of their Americana album, and it worked, with the set becoming the band's highest-charting album, spending two weeks at #2 on the Billboard 200, and going on to move over five million copies. But internationally, this song was huge, topping the charts in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, and making the top ten in Austria (#2), Denmark (#2), Switzerland (#4), Canada (#9), and France (#10).

Their follow-up single, the reggae-inspired "Why Don't You Get A Job?", also made the top ten on both the Mainstream (#10) and Alternative (#4) Rock radio charts, but for the same reasons stopped at #74 on the pop Hot 100. Then came "The Kids Aren't Alright", which got to #6 on the Alternative Rock chart, #11 on the Mainstream Rock list, and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #105. Finally, the album track "She's Got Issues" hit the top-20 on Alternative (#11) and Mainstream (#19) rock radio. 

(9/10)

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Here's the Offspring live at the House Of Blues in 1998...

Next up, at Woodstock '99...

and lastly, at the Reading Festival in 2011...