No Control

No Control
Studio album by Bad Religion
Released	November 2, 1989
Recorded	June 1989 at Westbeach Recorders, Hollywood, California
Genre	Punk rock, hardcore punk
Length	26:25
Label	Epitaph
Producer	Bad Religion
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Robert Christgau (B+) link
Bad Religion chronology
Suffer (1988) No Control (1989) Against the Grain (1990)

No Control is the fourth album (and sixth release overall) by the American punk band Bad Religion, released on November 2, 1989 (see 1989 in music) on Epitaph Records. It was the follow-up to the band's highly acclaimed reunion album Suffer.

Along with its predecessor, it is often considered one of the highest selling albums in the history of punk rock,^[1] although the album was not charted in Billboard. Some also consider it to be Bad Religion's finest effort,^[2] containing "Change of Ideas", "No Control", "I Want to Conquer the World", "Big Bang" and "You", all of which are staples of their live show to this day.

Stylistically, No Control is a faster album than its predecessor^{[clarification needed]}, owing more to hardcore punk.

Like the band's albums up to Generator, No Control was remastered on April 6, 2004. The album's original pressing is now out of print.

Production and marketing

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Around mid-to-late 1988, vocalist Greg Graffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz began writing an "album's worth of material". In early 1989, while Bad Religion was on a brief break from their Suffer tour, they decided to commence work on their next album and entered the Westbeach Recorders studio in June of that year to record it.

Reception

• Option - "...hot, tight, and very fast arrangements..." Reflex - "...perhaps the catchiest, purest and best punk..."
• Kerrang! (p. 51) - "The melodic pummeling of their best music is once again present in abundance."
• Allmusic - "... No Control simply and forcefully continued the shift, delivering a pummel of melodic songwriting made sharp by Greg Graffin's populist cynicism and the stinging barbs of a twin-guitar strike..." 4.5/5
• In 2003, the album was ranked the 4th punk rock album on Guitar World magazine's list of 100 Essential Guitar Albums, behind the Ramones' self-titled debut, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and The Clash's Give 'Em Enough Rope.^[3]
• As of July 2009, the album is #1759 on Rate Your Music's Top Albums of All Time list and #28 on their Best Albums of 1989 ranking.^[4]

Track listing

Release history

Notes/Trivia

• Track 2, "Big Bang" was featured on video game Tony Hawk's Underground.
• Track 3, "No Control" quotes James Hutton,^[5] "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end."^[6]
• Track 4, "Sometimes I Feel Like..." was labeled as "Sometimes I Feel Like... *?!%+!*" on the disc to the original CD version.
• Track 10, "You" was featured on video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 as in-game song and as song in the video of Rodney Mullen when you completed the game.
• Track 10, "You" contains the famous lyrics "there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend," a direct quotation of the famous Beatles song, "We Can Work it Out."
• Track 14, "Billy" was erroneously labeled as "Bizzy" on the cassette version.
• Track 15, "The World Won't Stop" was also labeled as "The World Won't Stop Without You" on the disc to the original CD version. Also, in some software-based audio players and CD rippers that use CD lookup databases such as CDDB, "The World Won't Stop" is erroneously tagged as "The World Won't Stop Without You".
• No Control (along with Suffer) is also referenced in the song "21st Century (Digital Boy)" (from 1990's Against the Grain and 1994's Stranger Than Fiction), when frontman Greg Graffin sings "tried to tell you about no control, but now I really don't know, and then you told me how bad you had to suffer, is that really all you have to offer".
• "21st Century (Digital Boy)" was also originally recorded for this album, but did not make the final cut. It is believed that this song was left out because it sounded different from their faster sound. So "21st Century (Digital Boy)" would end up on their next album, Against the Grain.

Credits

• Greg Graffin – lead vocals
• Greg Hetson – guitar
• Brett Gurewitz – guitar, backing vocals
• Jay Bentley – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Pete Finestone – drums, percussion

• Eddie Schreyer – mastering
• Norman Moore – art direction
• Pierre Deauville – art direction

References