Blink 182: Blink 182

Blink 182: Blink 182

2003

MCA Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Feeling This  2. Obvious  3. I Miss You  4.Violence  5. Stockholm Syndrome  6. Down  7. The Fallen Interlude  8. Go  9. Asthenia  10. Always  11. Easy Target  12. All of This  13. Here's Your Letter  14. I'm Lost Without You

Woah, you might want to sit down or hold onto your hat or something when I tell you this...but this is a Blink 182 album without a single joke on it... No farts, Ben Wah Balls, or dog-fucking...Not even in the bonus tracks...Just 14 tracks of lost love, loneliness and isolation...And what's even more surprising, it is the fact that the album doesn't fall flat on its face...For the most part it's pretty enjoyable...

It's very experimental for a pop-punk record...All kinds of crazy new sounds and song structures....Piano interludes...people reading letters...you name it...To be honest it takes me a bit to get into this though...To this day I still don't like album opener/first single "Feeling This." It sounds like the punk Blink 182 of yore, but for some reason there's a joylessness to it that's somewhat unappealing to me...Kind of like "Well, we have to do a pop-punk track, so let's get it out of the way..." I do have to hand it to the massed vocals on the accapella outro, though...That section is cool as hell...



Although, if I'm remembering things correctly. all music released in the immediate wake of 9/11 was similarly joyless...Even the pop music became robotic and android-like...It talked about fun and parties but any actual emotion was sucked out of it...I could hear the word "fun" being used but  it was hard to hear any actual fun being had...An affliction that still haunts the genre to this day...But the rock genre in particular, struggled with this...There was a pervasive feeling that if you were holding a guitar and standing in front of a microphone, you were going to get in trouble for using any emotional content that wasn't despair, quiet strength or just plain lack of emotion... And I guess that's right...How well would Blink 182 have fared if they faced this frightening new world of terror alerts armed only with their usual fart jokes and tales of careless teenage fun? They probably would have been seen as hopelessly trivial...

And like "Feeling This" I have a hard time getting too excited over most of the first half of this album..."I Miss You" is alright, but it's a bit too VH-1 for me...And the verses of "Violence" are a complete waste of time....But once we get to the slamming and catchy "Go", things pick up for me..."Asthenia" manages to convey loneliness while keeping it melodic, and "Always" is a successful melding of Emo and 80's pop... And best of all "All of This" has Robert Smith of the Cure taking over on lead vocals...You successfully forget you're even listening to a Blink 182 CD until you get to the chorus...This was unthinkable just an album ago....



For how much I enjoy it while I'm playing it, I don't reach for it too often, really...If I'm in the mood for some Blink 182  I usually reach for "Cheshire Cat" or "Take Off your Pants and Jacket", but I don't think that diminishes their achievement at all...I think it was the right move at the time...They stretched themselves a bit and managed to get themselves taken seriously for a change...Although, I don't think they had to try so hard to prove it to us...Their hardcore fans always knew there was more to these guys than they often let on...Unfortunately, these guys went on an almost decade-long hiatus after this album, leaving the album feeling like an oddity in their discography...They did eventually get back together, but we'll get to that tomorrow...

So let's check out "Go" by Blink 182...