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California Deluxe -- Reviews/First Impressions


boxelder

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Not really a review but just my initial thoughts.

The songs are just okay, not good not bad. Unfortunately there isn't another Sober or SD on there...

What's the big deal with LTH? Bottom of the Ocean does not sound Blink, that's straight up FOB! Long Lost Feeling sounds interesting, needs more listens.

I agree with the other people who are bothered by the repetitiveness. The songs feel very systematic put together.

I like Parking Lot more though, lol. 6/8 is the strongest of this batch.

 

Prefer Disc 1.

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5 minutes ago, Ghent said:

blink-182- California......Nominated for Grammy Award, doesn't meet blink-182online audio quality standards.

Jesus. I'm talking about the deluxe being distorted and the bass frequency thing. never said anything about california that was nominated, deluxe wasnt, sure im not a fan of the sound but it's not as bad as the deluxe.

you defend blink like it's your band. get a grip man.

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14 minutes ago, RAX said:

I don't think and never said they are intentionally releasing dog shit. This is a thread where people are saying their opinion on the album and i said mine. for fun I did the pro tools thing just so see if what i was hearing was correct and it was. 

and you really don't have to be a sound expert to hear that the sound is distorted and way to compressed. it's just sad why it is like that because i could have enjoyed the songs. It's fine if people like it, but generally, today, that kind of work is not good quality or professional amongst audio engineering, audiophiles etc. (watch Pensados Place if you're interested)

Daft Punk wrote and recorded an entire album for this cause and the first track is even titled Bring Life Back To Music. 


 

Does being an audio engineer make you overthink everything you listen to though? Serious question. I feel like if i was in that field i would nit pick everything. 

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Just now, Ghent said:

All I'm saying is that John Feldmann and his crew probably know more about this stuff than blink-182onliners.

all right, everyone shut up and like blink if you don't know more than the feldmann crew. we need proof before everyone says anything that's negative.

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It's hilarious how everyone falls back on that insult all the time. Yeah I like blink. That's why I've been here for 15 years.

There are plenty of things I don't like about blink. Such as Hey I'm Sorry. That song makes me want to rip my ears off. Difference is, I don't feel compelled to complain about it all day, every day, and change my username to HeyImSorryReallySucks

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4 minutes ago, Chewy030 said:

Does being an audio engineer make you overthink everything you listen to though? Serious question. I feel like if i was in that field i would nit pick everything. 

Yep. sometimes its annoying because i can't enjoy a good album or song because i dislike the sound. like the deluxe. but it can also be so awesome if the sound is incredible and the song. 

but don't get me wrong, for me a sound can be good and be different. The National and The Maccabees come to mind and compressed, punchy, not roomy sound can also be good if done well, like the Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da album. 

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1 minute ago, Ghent said:

All I'm saying is that John Feldmann and his crew probably know more about this stuff than blink-182onliners.

I hear you, they definitely have more experience and resources and success and all that, but they also take pride in their factory approach and there's nothing we can do other than judge the final product. When someone gives scientific reasons why it sounds the way it does and explains why it's not as effective as it could be, it's not really fair to just be like "I don't believe you" haha. Better to just say you don't care, cause that's fine.

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9 minutes ago, Chewy030 said:

Does being an audio engineer make you overthink everything you listen to though? Serious question. I feel like if i was in that field i would nit pick everything. 

Not an engineer but I have enough experience with my band and obsessing over how albums are made and stuff to say YES sometimes haha. It's more just part of the fun of loving music from a certain angle though, because anyone who makes an album should obviously be chasing the same thing - making quality music. So shitty mixing or sound quality can't totally destroy a good song, but it can definitely make me go "GRR I wish this was done differently because this sound quality pulls the music down from its potential"

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1 minute ago, Champ182 said:

Not an engineer but I have enough experience with my band and obsessing over how albums are made and stuff to say YES sometimes haha. It's more just part of the fun of loving music from a certain angle though, because anyone who makes an album should obviously be chasing the same thing - making quality music. So shitty mixing or sound quality can't totally destroy a good song, but it can definitely make me go "GRR I wish this was done differently because this sound quality pulls the music down from its potential"

Yeah, and i love trying to figuring out how something was done in a song, a sound or an effect maybe. Then trying to emulate it myself in a recording session. I can spend hours watching "How I mixed this song" on youtube haha

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I will say I think the songs that hadn't been pre-released make Deluxe seem a lot better off the bat! Haha my favorites of the album are definitely from this non-released batch so it makes me forget about stuff like Parking Lot and 6/8 also being on the album. 

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7 minutes ago, Champ182 said:

I will say I think the songs that hadn't been pre-released make Deluxe seem a lot better off the bat! Haha my favorites of the album are definitely from this non-released batch so it makes me forget about stuff like Parking Lot and 6/8 also being on the album. 

My thoughts also!

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Just finally listened, really happy! Not as good as California but still great. Quick reviews on the new song we hadn't heard before the link.

 

Good Old Days: Really good.

Don't Mean Anything: Awesome. Love the chorus. Easily the best one.

The other three: weird but not terrible, hopefully be growers.

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This album is so much better than the main one imo. When California dropped I was excited for new blink and it was the album of my summer, but afterwards not a lot of songs stuck. Maybe the anthemic choruses became too grating for me, idk. With this album, I was worried it'd be more of the same with Mark's track-by-track review. But I was really impressed. With maybe the exception of Misery, I can see myself coming back to all the songs on the album. More Matt Skiba influence, production gets in the way less, and the songs have more of an atmosphere to them than most songs on California. I combined these songs with the new Paramore album and I think I'm in heaven haha. Only problem I have with it at the moment is that they reused the same damn riff for a good chunk of the songs. Favorites right now are Long Lost Feeling, Last Train Home, 6/8, and Wildfire. Bored to Death acoustic was a nice surprise because it sounded a lot better than any other live acoustics of it. They should've made the crowd louder at the end though, would've been amazing.

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Overall, the Deluxe is sort of meh for me. I personally think the peak of Disc 1, which for me happens to be the first two songs, are the whole peak of the California era. I don't even remember what some of the songs off the Deluxe sound like after a couple listens they were that forgettable to me. I don't try to compare Skiba-Feldman blink to Tom-blink, so it is hard to be dissatisfied with the product if your expectations are at rock bottom. The album has some good songs like Misery or Good Old Days, but nothing that made me go "Wow I want to listen to that again!" I really don't like that they reused the same riff between 5 or 6 songs on Discs 1 and 2. blink-182 will always have a special place in my heart and I will always check to see what the band is up to but they outgrew the "My Favorite Band" label a long time ago along with pop punk in general. I think songs like Cynical, Bored to Death, TOTTM really capture the Pre-Cali blink vibe despite Skiba in the band, and that is why I enjoy those songs. More tunes like those, and yes, I'd love to see a +44 meets AK3 experiment on the next record. 

 

OH and also, why do the jokes songs have the badass riffs?! If they used those riffs in actual full songs, I think they would be absolute gems. 

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