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The Offspring: Ixnay on the Hombre (Columbia)

RJ Smith, Spin, February 1997

OF COURSE The Offspring hail from Orange County. They have to be from Orange County. Frontman Dexter Holland was a high school punk rocker who was also a class valedictorian who was also a jock. If he had composed that resume in the Midwest, the internal contradictions would have made him look like a freak or some kind of wannabe. In Orange County, where the promise of infinite possibility flows out the gates of Disneyland, dissolving subcultural distinctions into youth culture proper, he was simply an overachiever. Holland's dreadlocks were the mouse ears of an OC rebel.

Total word count of piece: 878

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