Five incredibly underrated albums from the 2010s

DAYDREAM EXPLOSION – THE DOLLYROTS (2019)

If you saw a Dollyrots show prior to Kelly Ogden’s gig as morning host on Little Steven’s Underground Garage satellite radio show, you were there with a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings, rocking out to some of the fastest, most upbeat pop-punk you were likely to find. In recent years, though the music is still as high-octane as ever, the crowd is very different. It is filled with baby boomers, often accompanied by adult kids. They aren’t slam dancing, but they’re having a blast nonetheless.

Singer/bassist Ogden and her husband, guitarist Luis Cabezas have changed some too. That is very obvious on their 2019 album Daydream Explosion, their widest-ranging collect of rockers yet. In addition to outright bangers like “Animal,” “In Your Face,” and the magnificently sophomoric “I Know How to Party,” they offer sweet love songs (“Watching the Storm Go By”), jazzy seduction (“Flippy in My Red Dress”) and even a beautiful closer about the joys and mysteries of parenthood (“Daisy’s Song,” named for the daughter Daisy, who often joins them on stage with her older brother River.)

Yep, even the Dollyrots, who once snarkily boasted about how awesome they were or how Kelly could go all Jackie Chan on a cheater… even the Dollyrots could grow up. But as they prove on DayDream Explosion, they have managed to do it without losing one ounce of their pop punk pedigree.