**1/2 Offspring

AMERICANA

(Columbia)

When Orange County's platinum-punk prodigies came out of the heavy-metal closet on their major-label debut ('96's Ixnay on the Hombrey), it proved something punk progeny have always known: power ballads aren't half as much fun as a good novelty tune. And Offspring's Smash smash "Come Out and Play" -- the tune that put the platinum in their punk -- was nothing if not a top-notch novelty, every bit as crucial to '96 playlists as Carl Douglas Jr.'s "Kung Fu Fighting" was back in '74.

Americana (in stores this Tuesday) finds Dexter Holland boldly leading his boys back to Dr. Demento land with the looney-tune single "Pretty Fly (For a White Boy)" -- a reverse-angle "Play That Funky Music" that aims a jesting fly-girl hook at "wiggers" with bad taste. The disc has its serious moments -- crime and punishment hits the suburbs amid the tuneful surge of "The Kids Aren't Alright." And some ridiculous ones, too, like the long-winded Eastern-tinged psychedelic intro to "Pay the Man," which might have worked better as the punkified "King Tut" it almost sounds like. And while we're speaking of covers, you do get an amusingly hardcored "Feelings," a snotty send-up in the tradition of "My Way" by perhaps the world's first novelty punk, Sid Vicious.

-- Matt Ashare