Nosferatu

I honestly do get why some people like Sober. Outside of the chorus and the annoying nananas, gang vocals and all, I get a +44 Make You Smile vibe in some of it. Which is a song I love but I tend not to like songs that are written just for radio or whatever. Some songs I do like if they're written for that reason (All the Small Things, The Rock Show). But them songs don't sound like Panic, ATL etc. It reminds me way too much of Fall Out Boy in the chorus and intro and despite the fact I love Los Angeles, I only find the vocals sound like Centuries in the chorus. Instrumentally the song is completely different. Could argue that the OHH-OHHH parts in the verses give a FOB vibe too. Can imagine the FOB singer doing the OHHHs in that part anyway. But LA is just a good song to me. Sober on the other hand, I just don't like it. Just isn't a blink sounding song to me. With Los Angeles & Bottom of the Ocean, I get +44 and blink vibes mixing with experimental stuff. The weird intro in LA is a lot like Fighting the Gravity IMO and +44 always had little electronic details in their songs, and things like that started to show in Neighborhoods & Dogs Eating Dogs. So to me, Los Angeles & Bottom of the Ocean sound like songs that would follow up after Neighborhoods. I guess that's why I love them two songs. Blink went from the BCR side project, smiley face album, AVA/+44 to Neighborhoods/DED to songs like Sober, Teenage Satellites, KOTW. That's just plain weird to me. I get bands change, actually love it more when they change, but from all those side projects & albums to the likes of Sober? Sorry, but that's not a natural evolution to me. Los Angeles & Bottom of the Ocean feel more like songs that have the natural evolution. That's just my opinion anyway. I'm shocked that Sober wasn't a single though. I'd rather hear that than whatever it is Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber (whoever is huge these days, I won't know cause I don't listen) etc come up with. But California has had shit promotion when it comes to singles aside from Bored to Death. Also seems like California Deluxe has worse promotion than Neighborhoods as well. They should've been pushing Sober as a single around this time last year.

I don't think Boxcar Racer will happen, although I'd love for it to happen. Never understood why people think Tom won't be able to write music as good as that anymore though. Like yeah, I agree that the 2002-2005 era was Tom's prime as a songwriter. He made a decent Chasing Shadows EP by rushing it, with probably like 50% effort. His problem is he gets sidetracked way too much. If he can focus on JUST Boxcar Racer, and no movies, books, novels, documentaries or whatever, then I'm like 99% sure it's gonna be a damn good album. No other projects. Although the last time he put his sole focus on recording an album (WDNTW & I-Empire), it didn't reach the level of BCR and the smiley face album. I believe he can write like that still though. He'll know he'll have something to prove. He won't try anything too pretentious. Boxcar Racer is the last thing he has with some good credibility so he can't afford stupid statements about changing the world or how Jesus entered his soul to help write this album (I'm sure I've read about him claiming Jesus wrote AVA's first album). Just no bullshit whatsoever. Just be quiet and record the damn album, just like the way BCR and the smiley face album were. It's obvious Tom would be the producer but an outside person would do Boxcar Racer the world of good. No matter what, the album will probably be a financial flop anyway. But if it's done exactly like the way it should be done like the paragraph above, it's gonna be some underrated album that will grow on us, and we'll probably end up loving it. Thing is, there's a 90% chance that this won't happen like that IMO.

1. Los Angeles 2. Bored to Death 3. Misery 4. Last Train Home 5. 6/8 6. Left Alone 7. Good Old Days 8. San Diego 9. Home Is Such a Lonely Place 10. Hey I'm Sorry 11. Bottom of the Ocean 12. Long Lost Feeling 13. Bored to Death (Acoustic Live) This is my playlist that I've named as the "California" album haha. I'll probably add to it and remove some when the next album is out. I doubt I'll like the whole album if Feldman is the producer, but hopefully I do.

Haha, I do agree that it is AAA too. Just the logo is stylised as an upside down A in the middle, which is fair enough. So technically, the logo is still AAA. Just the middle A is upside down, but it is still an upside down A and not a V. But I'll still call it AVA. Just cause it actually looks cool IMO.

Had to choose between Sober & California. Both for me are just as bad each other, but I hate Sober just a little bit more.

My guess is that Tom often posts on his social media accounts but he'll have people post the generic promotion/announcement parts sometimes. There's no way some random dude working for Tom posts a lot of the stuff seen on his social media accounts IMO. You know it's Tom when he's spouting out about big things coming, photos of blink related stuff, nostalgic stuff or the pretentious posts about changing the world or whatever it is he does.

Tends to happen to me as well. The less catchy songs or the mellow ones tend to grow over time for me. I liked Kaleidoscope on first listen, but it was more like "this is decent". Now it's one of my favourite ever songs.

I think I'd have to put Screaming Bloody Murder by Sum 41 as one of my favourite albums too. It's a pretty underrated album. Should've been the follow up to Chuck IMO.

I just finished watching the Dexter series. Man, such a good show but the last few episodes of the final season were such a let down IMO. Just hated the way it ended. Could've ended way better. First season is definitely my favourite. Love the villain. Reminds me a lot of the Joker from Batman in a way.

Yeah that's what I've done. Even added the Bored to Death live acoustic song as the "bonus track" haha.

I think the problem with MH (like most Mark songs from Neighborhoods though) is that Tom probably had no input in that song whatsoever. Wouldn't be surprised if he's never listened to the song. I think with Tom having his input, the tones would be better, the structuring, the song would just be less boring. I mean +44 has similar songs in Lycanthrope & When Your Heart Stops Beating. Like the generic alt rock sound, if that makes sense. Blink has it with Dogs Eating Dogs, but Tom actually has input in the song, and you can tell it's him playing. Plus the bridge for DED is actually interesting to me. I do like MH though. Just wish Tom had his input. I actually rate LID but I do think the lyrics are crap in some of it. Instrumentally, the song is great IMO. I think it'd arguably be the best song on the album if blink worked on this like a real band. There's a few I don't go out of my way to listen to. Natives (the intro and the verses are great, but the song just gets repetitive and boring after 2nd chorus, doesn't help having a bridge that is almost similar to Ghost on the Dance Floor). The other songs I don't go out of my way to listen to are the same as yours apart from Up All Night (I love that song haha). I do actually like After Midnight though, but can tell that song is rushed and it's rare I listen to it.

I voted for Even If She Falls. Never understood why people thought that song sounds like blink from Take Off. The riff sure, but the rest of the song to me sounds like the stuff Tom shat out from the LOVE albums. Apart from the riff, just don't like that song at all. This Is Home was my second choice, but I do enjoy listening to it if it ever pops up on shuffle.

On release, I was 10, and all I ever listened to was upbeat pop punk stuff. Hell, even liked Avril Lavigine back then. Bands like Good Charlotte, Sum 41, Offspring were my favourites. Funnily enough, at the time I couldn't get into Green Day who are now one of my favourite bands. I despised American Idiot when that was first released, mainly cause my mum would play it full blast every single fucking day when she was doing cardio on the treadmill at home. Blink were my favourite though, and I remember hearing Feeling This for the first time, which was on TV on some Kerrang channel. Loved the song on first listen. The album on the other hand, I just didn't know what it was. Never heard anything like it. Took me off guard. Enjoyed Feeling This. Thought Obvious was decent and the only other two I loved from first listen were I Miss You and Always. Songs like Stockholm Syndrome, All of This, Fallen interlude, I'm Lost Without You, Violence I just remember thinking "what the hell?" when listening to them for the first time. Such a strange album. Didn't feel it was good, didn't feel it was bad. I just didn't understand it. But as I got into my teens, I just appreciated it more and eventually fell in love with it. Took me about 4-5 years to actually think "you know what? this album is actually great". +44 and Boxcar Racer had the same effect too. As did Green Day with the American Idiot album, Sum 41 with Chuck, all albums that I just didn't understand on first listen. So in my case it definitely improved haha.

I don't think blink have totally sold out. Like Oliver said, it's been that way since day one. It's well documented that both Mark & Tom wanted blink to be huge before Enema. Unlike most punk bands in the early 90s, blink were one of the few who had no problem signing with major record labels and all. Enema came, Tom & Mark had their fun in the spotlight. But Tom wanted to blink to grow. He wanted to push the band more & experiment, especially with the Take Off album. But Mark wanted another Enema. All of that has been documented. I think after the success of Boxcar Racer, Mark probably felt more at ease about making a huge change in the sound. Meanwhile, Tom's ego was out of control by the end of 2004. Obviously he started AVA. Mark genuinely felt blink was all about the chemistry between him, Tom & Travis. Hence why he started +44. Which wasn't as successful as Boxcar Racer and blink's smiley face album from a commercial point of view. And outside of blink fans, +44 is barely spoken of. Mark probably views +44 as a failure or something. Also began to support bands like Fall Out Boy. He strikes me as the type of guy that is passive aggressive. He doesn't wanna be supporting Fall Out Boy or some shit like that. Hence why blink is continuing without Tom. He loves blink also too. it's clear he does. He willingly flied to USA straight away from UK just to record a 5 song EP. He also once said blink is at its best when they're all in the same room recording. Yet, Neighborhoods wasn't done that way. I think he's at odds with himself. He'll go against everything he believes in if it means blink is still going.

If there's any ever long drawn out topic in these boards, I just tend to skip past it. No problem for me. There's no way I'm gonna read the philosophies, meaning and impacts of the lyric "I think I like today. I think it's good." The line IMO just sucks. Period. Ain't even gonna explain why. I'd definitely read the philosophies, meanings and impacts of +44's album though!