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Box Car Racer or alternate blink timeline? Pick one.


Patient #48273

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As we all know, Box Car Racer created a lot of drama in the blink camp and was a major factor in the sequence of events that led to the band breaking up the first time. So, let's imagine that BCR didn't happen and blink didn't break up in 2005.

What do you think would have happened if Tom had decided not to do BCR? would that have been preferable to what we've had from blink and all the side projects over the last 16 years? Would you give up the BCR album if it meant blink would stay together longer (although maybe not indefinitely)?

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If he hadn't of split off into BCR, I think blinks music would have taken a darker turn. Not necessarily BCR / Untitled level, but maybe a balance of lighter and heavier tracks. I think if their friendship had remained strong, Mark would have been okay with the change, and maybe Tom would have incorporated some of his loftier ideas into the blink camp with less resistance and dismissal, as the guys would trust and respect him more.

Whether that would have worked out well is an entirely different matter though. I have no idea.

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I love topics like this haha. My guess is they actually would've just put out another few albums of music similar to Enema and TOYPAJ and then kinda faded away or ended up with a career similar to NFG or something where they keep touring and making new albums for their loyal fanbase but the spark that made them special would be gone. 

Keep in mind, Tom initially started Box Car Racer because he was THAT convinced that the songs were too dark for Blink/Mark and they wouldn't have fit with the band and the sound they wanted at the time. The official story has turned into "we knew after TOYPAJ that we wanted to take a darker turn and that's why we made Untitled the way we did" but if that was the case then Tom wouldn't have made BCR in the first place. I think Mark would've continued the pop punk path they were on for life if BCR was never made. I think it was a wake-up call for sure and it obviously led them to take a giant creative leap into a new direction for awhile.

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I would gladly give up BCR and +44 it it meant they stayed together and made more than just one full effort album after that (Untitled) and I love those albums.

BCR and WYHSB are essentially like blink albums to me, but Self Titled is just that much more powerful because they were together and under blink.

I'd be more excited to have more than 4 really good albums by my favorite band..that's really not that many and it's kind of crazy how that played out for all the pop punk bands, they all had that tendency to fuck up and be headcases, which is part of why we liked them/related but in comparison to other generations, they would get way more than we did...between 2003 and 2011 we only got Neighborhoods...that's insane.

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Tom would have gone off into the deep end regardless, IMO. He's too egotistical and crazy. He had a mulligan with the reunion and still managed to fuck things up pretty quickly. 

I'd say it's Boxcar Racer or 2-3 good, dark, Jerry Finn albums (including Self-Titled) before Tom went crazy, then Travis has his plane crash and you have a similar timeline of Neighborhoods onwards. I'd obviously take the 2-3 good Blink albums over Boxcar. 

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yeah if we're choosing between Tom's mental health and BCR i'd definitely take the gamble and assume that if Tom stayed healthy upstairs blink would have easily surpassed what was done with BCR.

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I don't think it'd be too different to how it played out in the first place. Mark did question BCR and even said himself in an interview "why not create a heavier blink record?" so he was definitely open to the idea of BCR styled songs. My guess is that the album wouldn't have been the smiley face album. I feel like it'd have some BCR songs on it but each song would be different to what the actual BCR songs turned out to be.

At the end of the day, Tom would be high on drugs eventually. He had back surgery, which is no surprise considering he used to kinda bend down a bit whilst playing the guitar. After 2002-03 he stopped doing that more. So eventually he'd go off his rocker and try take too much control over blink. I think the frustrations Mark and Tom had happened before BCR too. Seemed to me they started to clash during the recording of TOYPAJ based on all the interviews I've heard.

The album that would either be BCR/smiley face would probably sound great, but I don't think the change in the sound would've been so drastic. If you ignore BCR, then TOYPAJ to smiley face is a huge change. But from TOYPAJ to BCR to the smiley face album isn't too drastic. There would be no bitterness or paranoia from Mark, so I don't think he'd argue with Tom about Tom possibly leaving blink-182. But I do still think Tom and Mark would clash way more eventually if the time line was different. Tom would still want to be close with his family and he'd still probably suggest recording at his own studio, and he'd still try have more control in blink's sound.

If anything, I think it'd just delay the band split by a year or two. AVA and +44 would most likely probably have albums around 2007-2008, possibly under different band names and album names. Possibly different members in their bands. Travis would have no plane crash, since no BCR would lead to Travis taking completely different footsteps each day. So he'd possibly never meet DJ AM or whatever, who'd also probably be alive, since he'd not be travelling on that plane to play with Travis. So he'd probably not die of a drug overdose the year later.

And if there's no plane crash, then Tom would probably never reach out to Travis & Mark. So there'd possibly be no reunion at all.

It'd be very different, but similar happenings. Travis would probably still be taking shit loads of drugs since the plane crash was a reason for him stopping them if I remember correctly. Feel like watching Back to the Future now haha.

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I don't know, without BCR we likely wouldn't have my favorite album of all time (untitled) but... maybe we could have had something even better? Who knows... I think BCR was the best thing for blink-182 musically, but damaging for the bandmember's relationships.

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I think that if Tom would have been able to pout his BCR think into blink, we'd had, probably, a great raw record before Untitled happened. I mean, I'm sure Untitled would have been there, maybe a little bit different, but it would have been there despite my hipotetical 'raw' record between TOYPAJ and it.

But, in the end, I think the whole disband thing would have happened no matter what. I think that, in the end, all the drama was due to egos, mainly between Mark and Tom in terms of what to do with the band at that moment (2004-2005).

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I never believed that it was because of Box Car Racer that blink broke up. I know that Mark was salty about it and it created significant tension within the band but after 10 years of constant touring around the world, all year, with the constant pressure to release new music and with their families to take care of, I'm sure they would have likely burned out anyway. Tom would have gone bat shit crazy anyway by 2005 and a new album after Untitled would have never seen the light of day because it would have been impossible to work with him (and create a follow up to Untitled that was a more punk rock version of Angels and Airwaves.) So I'm just glad we had Box Car Racer.

I'm so sure that if Box Car Racer had never happened, we wouldn't have had more blink either. Edit: But of course I'd take more blink over the Box Car Racer album.

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I think BCR was a way of Tom rebelling against the dynamics of his relationship with Mark as well. If you look at their dynamic before that, how they acted with each other, Mark was quite obviously leading Tom. He’s a few years older and that would have been their default hierarchy when they became friends and Blink developed. Mark was, what, 19-20 and Tom was 16-17 when Blink started? That’s a pretty big gap at that age.

Then we have Tom doing BCR, the band writing Untitled and Tom’s delusions of grandeur.

I think the shift in dynamic hurt Mark’s ego, even if only subconsciously, causing him to be passive aggressive towards Tom, hurting their friendship. Meanwhile, Tom goes on to decide that he’s too good for Blink, as he views himself as more than that artistically, and we get his wacko interviews about AvA and all the other shite from then on.

Mostly Tom’s fault IMO, but Mark definitely contributed to it as a coping mechanism. That’s just my read based on years of watching shows/interviews etc, could be way off! 

I think that even if BCR didn’t happen, that change in dynamic would have happened at some point and Blink still would have imploded around ‘05.

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