Comedy-rock is an underrepresented genre on the UK singles chart, if indeed it is a genre at all. Most of the comic songs we’ve met so far have been thoroughly pop-leaning, and most of them have been thoroughly awful…
Pretty Fly (For a White Guy), by The Offspring (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 24th – 31st January 1999
Luckily this next record rocks, and isn’t awful. ‘Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)’ would be a hard-rocking #1 in any era, but in the extreme pop landscape of the late nineties it really stands out. And if any sub-genre of rock lends itself towards comedy, it would be this sort of gonzo nu-punk. From the faux-German intro (borrowed from Def Leppard), past the uno dos tres…, to the Give it to me baby, Aww-aww-aww-aww… this song is packed with several extremely dumb but catchy hooks.
Admittedly I turned thirteen on this song’s final day at #1, so was the perfect age for something this loud and obnoxious. But I will argue that it has held up pretty well, and in fact its poseur-bashing message is perhaps even more relevant in the social media age. Okay, some of the references are dated (Ricki Lake, mistaking Vanilla Ice for Ice Cube) but He may not have a clue, And he may not have style, But everything he lacks well he makes up in denial… is a line for all seasons. Fake it ‘til you make it, baby…
Frontman Dexter Holland made it clear that the song wasn’t a comment on Black/hip-hop culture, but a satire on middle-class white kids trying to ape it. My favourite line is when the hero of the song is cruising in his Pinto, waving at homies as they pass… But if he looks twice they’re gonna kick his lily ass… To this day, though, I don’t get the reference to him wanting a ‘13’ tattoo but getting a ‘31’. I’d appreciate it if one of my more fly readers could enlighten this particular white guy…
The Offspring, from southern California, had been around since 1984 under the name Manic Subsidal. They were proper punks back in the day, which inevitably led to some older fans seeing the poppier sound (not to mention the chart success) of this track as a sell-out. They presumably had conniption fits when they heard the ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ aping follow-up ‘Why Don’t You Get a Job?’, which made #2 a few months later.
This smash hit set the Offspring up for a good few years of belated chart success, with tunes like ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’, ‘Original Prankster’, and ‘Hit That’ to name a few of my favourites. They probably never quite hit the commercial heights of other ‘90s pop-punk acts like Green Day or Blink-182, but they have something that neither of those bands managed: a number one single.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Ugh. Anti-white racism already cool. No thanks.
I mean the Offspring are white, so… You can dislike the song, or the theme, but I’m not sure it can be called racist.
I always assumed a “13” tattoo was cool because 13 is unlucky, but he is uncool and so messed it up and got 31 instead.
But there might be a reference there that was lost on me!
Oh, is that it? I thought it was some sort of gang-sign reference…
I absolutely love this song. Love the “Rock of Ages” intro though it always tricks me since I love Def Leppard. The female backing vocals are also hilarious too. Always cracks me up, especially seeing the music video (the guy who plays the “white guy” actually appeared on stage during The Offspring’s Woodstock ’99 performance and starts dancing on the stage and it’s hilarious, even the lead singer Dexter Holland starts cracking up as he’s singing the song)
What a huge breath of fresh air this pop punk classic is. I don’t know The Offspring that well but I love a lot of their singles.
The number “13” is often associated with bad luck or rebellion in various subcultures, while “31” is meaningless in that context. This lyric are supposed to emphasise how the “white guy” is incompetent and has lack of understanding of the culture he’s trying to emulate.
Yeah I’m not albums-level aquainted with the Offspring but they’ve had some great singles over the years.
Someone else commented the same thing re. the ’13’ / ’31’ tattoo , and I didn’t realise it was that simple. I though it must have been a gang sign reference, or something.
Great record, and hugely entertaining. Humour in music is always, always under-rated, as if it’s somehow less-worthy than the dour, self-obsessed introverted dark acts trying to make an artform out of miserablism with no light and shade – if anything they are the ones that need the piss taking out of themselves for being overly pretentious at times, and bands like The Offspring are just the ones to do it! Love this track still, singalong and play loud, and the follow-ups are were pretty fine too. You can put this on at a family disco and it’ll go down well 🙂
OMG I totally remember this one! LOL.
The real classic of this genre was‘ Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus, appalling kept at number 2 by the awful dirge of Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’
I like Offspring. This song is funny but, the Def Leppard lead in is annoying.
I LOVED Why Don’t You Get A Job?… this one is alright…it’s nice to hear a guitar in all of this pop dance stuff that seemed to dominate the charts.