Champ182

I'm retroactively in favor of the beer drinking

what?? what is that poll?

haha yeah I had plenty of friends who made that same move in the mid 2000s, for some reason I veered off into indie rock instead

haha those are really cool!

Some of my friends who liked screamo loved Atreyu, but holy shit I hated all of that stuff haha just some of the worst sounding music to my ears.

Bored To Death was absolutely massive, nobody can argue that. It was their biggest hit in a decade. For that alone, Feldmann was absolutely necessary to get them back in the mainstream. And I fucking love that song, shoutout to Feldy for that one. I do think that his style and sound wear VERY thin over an entire album though, let alone two albums. In the grand scheme of things I don't think he's necessary or even helpful for making a good album, but he definitely did his job right with Bored To Death. Also, in regards to the marketing and media and stuff, that was SOOO huge in helping the band get back on top this time around, especially in contrast with Neighborhoods, and I do wonder how much Feldmann had to do with that. Not in a direct way, but with the record label. I wouldn't be surprised if the money people figured "this will be worth the money we put into it, Feldmann has been working with pop radio acts for years so we know we can trust him to make hits, the investment on all this marketing will pay off in the end"

Sooooo rad

That's how I feel about Alkaline Trio so I get where you're comin from haha. I like Motion City wayyyy more.

I think Justin Pierre comes to mind for a lot of people because he already worked with Mark on two of MCS's best albums and he has a high voice that would contrast with Mark's in a more similar Tom/Mark type of way. I'm not sure how well it would work in reality though since his writing style seems to be very personal/autobiographical and "singular" if that makes sense. Like I imagine him writing fully-formed songs and presenting them to the band for their input straight from his brain rather than starting from scratch and collaborating in the studio the way Blink prefers. I'm not sure how it would end up. All that aside though, I think Motion City's music and personality as a band was closer to Blink on the pop punk spectrum than Alkaline Trio was. Just tons of catchy-as-fuck melodies and riffs. And I actually think they sound WAYYYYYY more unique and "timeless" as someone said, than the other bands from that Hot Topic mid-2000s era like FOB, The Academy Is, Good Charlotte, etc. It's hard to explain but they always felt more authentic and inched closer to that era's indie rock than the others. Some of their stuff sounds almost like Blink meets Death Cab which was right up my alley at the time (and still is).

I just stumbled onto this old interview from 2000 and Mark describes Tom perfectly haha "Tom is totally, 100 percent faithful to his girlfriend. He's pretty straightforward: He hangs out with his girlfriend, and he believes in aliens. Honestly, he believes anything he reads. You could say, 'I read in a magazine that an alien landed in Australia. A doctor found him and did an autopsy – there's footage on the Internet.' And Tom wouldn't even question it. He would take it as gospel and go around telling everybody." https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-blink-182-went-to-the-top-of-the-charts-by-keeping-their-minds-in-the-gutter-20000120

The second one he produced for them was great too (My Dinosaur Life) even though the band said he was much more hands-on during CTTM. In an interview they said they had trouble keeping his attention from his phone the second time around haha.

Are they coherent/interesting at all?

Hmmmm do we need a Calihoods Tracklist thread? haha

That song just fucking rules. Probably my favorite of the whole post-reunion era. I was so hyped about it being a possible path forward for the band. I thought it was a great example of Tom's grandiose ideas being reined in and perfected with Mark and Travis's influences. Cool riff, extremely Cure-inspired synth, amazing harmonies, plenty of energy. The lyrics and sound quality could be improved, and I wish the final chorus hit harder somehow, but overall I love it.

My original answer on page 2, AKA the day after Cali came out haha: I still stand by that for the most part, but I do think I was blinded by the excitement a little bit, and also didn't know about the extent of the behind the scenes ghostwriting and stuff yet which obviously bugged me. So California has slid quite a bit down below Neighborhoods, it didn't have any staying power for me unfortunately. Neighborhoods had its shitty moments too but the highs are much higher in my opinion.