Smash (The Offspring Album) - Legacy

Legacy

Smash is regarded by critics as one of the most influential punk rock albums of all time, and has inspired a number of musicians. During Trivium's early days, guitarist Matt Heafy performed a cover version of "Self Esteem" at his middle school talent show at Lake Brantley High School, while the British synthpop group Cuban Boys also covered that song on their only full-length Eastwood. The album's other hit, "Come Out and Play", was covered by Richard Cheese on his 2000 album, Lounge Against the Machine and again released on the 2006 album, The Sunny Side of the Moon. Brett Gurewitz, the guitarist of Bad Religion and president of Epitaph, had also mentioned that he liked Smash and described it as "a very good record". New York melodic hardcore punk band After the Fall mentioned Smash in their song "1994", which appears on their 2009 album Fort Orange.

Along with Green Day's Dookie, Smash was among the most commercially successful punk rock albums released in 1994, a year when the genre reached arguably its greatest popularity. By the end of the year, Dookie and Smash had both sold millions of copies. The commercial success of these two albums attracted major label interest in pop punk, with bands such as Rancid, NOFX and Pennywise, who had all been labelmates with The Offspring at the time, being offered lucrative contracts to leave their independent record labels, though this offer was rejected.

In November 2011, Smash was ranked number two on Guitar World magazine's top ten list of guitar albums of 1994, between Bad Religion's Stranger than Fiction and Weezer's Weezer.