Champ182

Yeah just a weird attempt by the music industry to prop up album sales for a few years there. Don't really see them bothering with that anymore.

Finally watched part of that bizarre "presentation" good lord. You guys are 10000% right that the best idea for him would have been a goofy show about him going around researching this stuff. It wouldn't even need to be an over-the-top heavily produced reality show like all of those on A&E or whatever, make it like Anthony Bourdain's show but with supernatural stuff instead of food. Tom travels around and hears the local stories, stakes out the spot where a UFO was last seen or whatever, "teach" the audience about shit he knows, and just make it feel like you're hanging out with Tom on these strange adventures. Let Tom's goofy personality drive the show. I remember back when he was going on Bigfoot hunts thinking that could be a hilarious documentary, model the show after stuff like that. But he's so utterly convinced that he's going to change the world that he could never do something so trivial in his mind. He thinks he has some of the most privileged information in human history (lol) so he has to slowly and professionally reveal it through comic books/movies/garbled nonsense that nobody can understand(??). Such a bummer. As far as the scam thing, he definitely should have just had it be a "donate" option instead of "invest," but I'm guessing most people are considering it a donation anyway. If anyone expects to make money off this thing they're insane, but not duped or scammed (sorry Clarke). All the info is out there, if nobody reads the fine print that's on them, the same way it is with literally any other company out there. It just feels more insane because it's Tom haha

I gotta say I don't understand the rage about the investment crap. If idiots want to invest they'll invest, I wouldn't do it in a million years but he's not misleading anyone about what he's doing.

Haha my guess is that some time ago he was talking to one of these former government guys and they mentioned the theory that alien/supernatural secrets are slowly leaked out via movies and TV so that they seem more plausible to the public and won't cause as much hysteria when they are finally revealed, and Tom went "I CAN HELP YOU DO THAT LET'S DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND I'M GONNA DO THIS TOO AND WAOUEHAOEANOEFMAOGEUEROGURG204T8A0FAFE" And these guys are like "well ok if this weirdo can get some extra research money from that crap let's do it"

I agree with everything in your post EXCEPT this. Maybe it's just a long-term bit or something but Mark is never smiling in photos, never excited in interviews, he doesn't seem all that happy to me. But that doesn't mean he doesn't prefer the setup they have now vs. with Tom.

All The Small Things isn't great and I never have an urge to listen to it, but it's SOOO much better than some of the horrible bullshit on this list haha

I would assume so

Fallen Interlude by far

Dog song part II

Yeah I totally agree actually. I remember thinking those verses had the kind of honest lyrics I would expect from the older version of Blink. The angst and confusion of being a modern adult, including figuring out how to raise kids in this fucked up world, is something they all deal with and, apparently, "keeps them up all night." haha

I think it's both. Mark very obviously writes differently now because of Feldy's influence and some self-admitted writer's block problems over the past decade. And since that's how he chooses to write now I'm not nearly as much of a fan. But I didn't "grow out of" his music, in my opinion he got worse at making new music so I'm not as into it. I still like the old stuff and not just for nostalgia either!

I actually think Kaleidoscope is a great riff away from being amazing. The riff Mark wrote (I'm assuming) doesn't do it for me.

Could be I suppose, but I don't think we've gotten any indication at all of that being the case. If anything, any time it came up Mark sometimes waffled but said "Tom rejoining isn't even something remotely on the horizon so we're not going to talk about it" and stuff like that.

why the fuck does Mark always sound so weak/weird/horrible in the intro of Cynical?