“Say goodbye to your generation,” roars Methadones lead singer Daniel Schafer, a.k.a. Danny Vapid, on the best cut on the band’s record Career Objectives, “The whole damn thing’s going down the tubes.” If so, it won’t be the Methadones’ fault, for they are a rare pop-punk band that rises above the squalling pack. Sure, there’s a sound-alike quality to many of the 11 tracks on the Chicago band’s album, but the song they nearly all sound like is a good one — a power-chord-driven Ramones-like mantra with better-than-average lyrics. And at their best, such as on “Say Goodbye to Your Generation,” “Far Away” and “You Don’t Know Me Anymore,” the Methadones rise to that anthemic, sing-along, wake-up-with-the-song-still-in-your-head plateau that is pure punk at its highest stage of evolution.
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2004.