The Throwaways

There never was a supergroup more super than the Traveling Wilburys. They had Jeff Lynne, the leader of ELO; they had Roy Orbison, the best pop singer of the '60s; they had Tom Petty, the best roots rocker this side of Bruce Springsteen; they had a Beatle and Bob Dylan, for crying out loud! It's impossible to picture a supergroup with a stronger pedigree than that (all that's missing is a Rolling Stone), but in another sense it's hard to call the Wilburys a true supergroup, since they arrived nearly two decades after the all-star craze of the '70s peaked, and they never had the self-important air of nearly all the other supergroups. That, of course, was the key to their charm: they were a group of friends that fell together easily, almost effortlessly, to record a B-side for a single for George Harrison, then had such a good time they stuck around to record a full album, which became a hit upon its 1988 release. The Traveling Wilburys was big enough to convince the group to record a second album, cheerfully and incongruously titled Vol. 3, two years later despite the death of Orbison…

It's more mixing of stylized punk revival and hybridism with left-field musical experimentation and in-the-now pop culture lyrical references on Splinter, the Offspring's seventh full-length. "Never Gonna Find Me," "Long Way Home," and "Lightning Rod" each bristle with overdriven guitars and Dexter Holland's high-pitched bleating; they're somewhat workmanlike, but still roil with that precision fury particular to a veteran band. At the same time, Holland, guitarist Noodles, and bassist Greg Kriesel can't resist returning to the towel-slapping trash humor and mean-spirited loathing that typified past tracks like "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" and "Self Esteem." Lead single "Hit That" talks up baby daddies over a bopping bassline and keyboard right out of a Bloodhound Gang track, while "Spare Me the Details" subverts its lighthearted acoustic strum with foul-mouthed (on the clean version, anyway) attacks on a philandering girlfriend ("I'm not the one who acted like a ho"). "Da Hui" overdrives surf rock while paying homage to hardcore Hawaiian board riders, and "When You're in Prison" ends Splinter with sage advice about protecting your dignity in the clink.

Combining the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's third and fourth albums, The Impossible Dream and Tomorrow Belongs To Me, offers perhaps the archetypal vision of Alex Harvey, as his long-nurtured alter-ego, the comic book hero Vambo, finally burst out of imagination to take on a life of his own on stages across the world. Yet what would become the group's most successful albums also stand as their patchiest.

The Traveling Wilburys built upon George Harrison's comeback with Cloud Nine and helped revitalize the other supergroup members' careers, setting the stage for Bob Dylan's 1989 comeback with Oh Mercy, Tom Petty's first solo album, Full Moon Fever, produced by Jeff Lynne (sounding and feeling strikingly similar to this lark), and Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl, which was released posthumously. Given the success of this record and how it boosted the creativity of the rest of the five, it's somewhat a shock that the second effort falls a little flat.