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I don't think Mark's depressive state in that period had to do with Tom or whatever. Mark is not the first who feels depressed when coming back home after a tour. Is that feeling of reaching a goal and then thinking... "ok, now... WHAT?"

I LISTEND 2 IT IN MY CAR ON THE WAY 2 WRK TODAY OMG SO GUD

Yeah, and that's the main reason why I like it. I think I said it once: Neighborhoods it's an accurate picture of a band trying not to sink and trying to save themselves from their own egos and past luggage. It sounds as disjointed as the band was at that point. It's a pure reflection of the whole situation, and you gotta love it for what it is.

I miss Tom ?. About to be as depressed as Mark after a tour.

He should have just hired Skiba and kept using the AVA name. That’s what all the cool bands do these days.

Can’t wait for these well thought out points to be dismissed with a simple ‘fan fiction’ picture. Classic.

Yeah, Travis always said that Tom only cared when it came to touring and that he'd hype up a new album to himself & Mark whenever they were together in person. But as soon as the tour would finish, Tom was never to be heard again until the next tour. I like to think Mark isn't phoning it in for the Skiba era, but is just actually very insecure of his own songs. There's a reason why there were barely any Mark songs since TOYPAJ before California. He had most input on songs like Stockholm Syndrome, Go, Here's Your Letter, Heart's All Gone, Kaleidoscope, MH and Fighting the Gravity. Let's not forget the In Transit song he did with Pete Wentz either. That's 8 songs from 2003-2016. Obviously you can count the +44 album as well, which is 12 songs. So altogether, 20 songs from Mark in a 13 year period. Compare that to Tom, who took charge on the smiley face album & Neighborhoods. He also had 5 AVA albums released in that time period too and his solo demos album. That's over 60-70 songs. Mark is stuck and Feldman encouraged him with the forced first thought = best thought method. He's got writer's block. Even right now he still has it IMO, but because he got encouraged by Feldman with that shitty method, he's basically forcing down anything he comes up with. Even then, he still needs the help of songwriting teams. He's not the same guy he was in 1997-2001 when he could come up with so many great songs in a quick manner. Nowadays he's better when he overthinks stuff, but it means way way less quantity. Also means more quality IMO. I think that's another reason blink has suffered as a result. They sacrificed quality for quantity. I definitely don't think he's phoning it in, I just think he needs a lot of help. Tom used to be that guy for him but Tom could never commit. I probably rate the Neighborhoods songs a bit more than California, but the best of Neighborhoods against the best of California is a very equal level of quality IMO. Well, maybe like 2-3 Neighborhoods songs outshines the very best of California. But California has so much more shit added in and that's where Neighborhoods becomes the better album for me. So I too probably would prefer a band that barely works together. But man I remember being so frustrated during the 2009-2014 period. As I said, I would've rather have had +44 reform than any of these two versions of blink.

excellant, about time someone drops that phoney phok

kinda explains why Neighborhoods is such a mess as well, as they didn't write together. Tom is creative and hyper when he's writing, I imagine it ignites enthusiasm into Mark, but Mark tempers Tom's over eager approach by adding a second level of thought to it. without the more restrained thoughtfulness from Mark, all of Toms ideas are let loose as is and not refined. but without Tom's spark, mark has had to get it from other places but no longer has the confidence or direction to temper them or guide them, which means Mark's output is also not refined. they're writing suffers without each other.

My issue is that the past with Tom sucked because he didn't care and it felt phoned in and took forever, but this time around it feels like Mark doesn't care about it at all and is phoning it in by getting other people to do the work for him, and I don't get remotely excited or interested in announcements because I know it's going to be shit now. They've done so much cringe stuff since they've gone onto the California phase, the Whats My Age Again video with fucking vine girls, the vegas residency, the music in general, that video with lil Wayne, a slew of over priced ridiculous merch and shows and packages, I'm half expecting them to come out with a fucking energy drink at this rate. I have no interest in any of it because none of it feels like blink and even when blink did cringe things the music was still good enough to stick by it (I'm looking at you weird Doritos augmented reality experiment). I'd always rather mark travis and tom were back together and Tom actually gave a fuck. and I never thought I'd prefer the days when Tom was half assed about blink, but goddamn do I prefer that to now. the only thing that would make me reluctant is that Mark was much unhappier then, and whilst I think he's a knob lately I still want him to be happy.

It's depression, you don't need a valid reason. It just happens sometimes. I've been struggling with severe depression for years and there's no good or "valid" reason for it.

Oh my tits. This is a sexy header.

Nope, just asked my producer friend who fucked Travis' wife onetime and he said this is definitely not a valid reason to get depressed. Sorry Hoppusbots.

I would be depressed too if I just came off a hugely successful comeback album, record breaking tour, being adored by old and new fans all day everyday for two years...and then suddenly had nothing to do but sit in a living room and scroll through Twitter 90x a day.

GUYS! It's time to add another profession to the list!! Super producers, record execs, industry insiders, tour managers and now....psychiatrists!! Congratulations!

Glad to know you are the ultimate authority on what is a valid reason to get depression

gf breaks up with you, you go out with new girl, at first its great, new friends, new experiences, but then you start missing them and realize you wrote a craptastic album. happened to mark.

That's a good point @Nosferatu, the only thing I don't agree with it's the comparison between Tom and Mark in quantity, just because what you explained later: quantity is not equal to quality. Tom may have written 60-70 songs in the same period that Mark wrote whatever he wrote, but the majority of those songs are pretty much forgettable, so... well... in the end you may be getting the same amount of 'good' songs as Mark. I guess that when they both split up, we were able to notice how much they needed each other to improve their songwritting. I'm more and more convinced that one of blink's 'secrets' was the balance of forces between Mark and Tom in terms of creativity and songwritting. Both of them clashing made them put their respectives very bests for the benefit of the songs, and once you take off that element (tension, balance, whatever), the songwritting turns fragile and inconsistent. So that's why I think this new era doesn't work. Because not only takes off an important element -well ,he took off himself out of the picture, to be honest-, but incorporated a yes-to-all man who can't or don't want to make a deeper input on the songwritting, and another guy who told how blink should sound instead of letting them being whatever they have to be and sounding as they may sound. Can you imagine if we didn't get Untitled or Neighborhoods/DED because some guy decided that those albumes were not blink sounding? That would've been nuts.

I ripped into Neighborhoods when it came out because it has obvious flaws. Those flaws are still there. The only change is that California was a lot worse, so the goal posts had to move.

I have so far avoided seeing Love and I'm continuously glad for that.

I was so far off the Tom train by that point that I forgot that movie even existed at all

And I’m posting it again cunt

It's impressive how terrible that movie is after how much time and energy they put into it.

A lot of retired people actually get depression because they don't have the schedule they used to have and feel useless and not needed. Of course there are also different reasons to get a depression because its a very complex disease. But having nothing to do is one of the main reasons for people to break

Yep..It has to be pretty jarring to travel the country day in and day out, constantly on schedule, playing in front of crowds..then suddenly you're sitting in your living room with nothing to do and no plans

I think he got depressed because he looked out in the crowd one day and noticed they were bringing in too many Ghent clones and not enough Olivers.

This is my start of summer song, love Mike Dirnt's bass on this!

Isn't Disaster just fucking awful? I despise that song. aw man, I love that bass. one of my fave Mark pics is the one where he holds it up to his face.

I'm not the die hard blink fan I once was, I can take big breaks and don't need constant blink news and activity to satisfy me. I'd much rather have blink it in its real form for all it's flaws and Tom's shit than this new age watered down version where a lot of shit they are doing seems so forced.

Stomping the Phantom Brake Pedal is the worst blink related release ever. I still don't know what the hell that was.

Well thought out points? More like skim-worthy tombot novels Reading those posts put me into a trance..almost started listening to "stomping the phantom brake pedal"...Gonna have to start posting that kind of stuff in spoiler tags for public safety

I like this a lot more than I was expecting to. I think I like this more than the new blink and AVA songs lol

I remember I listened to it 80 times in one day. I listened to that song so much. It stayed at the top of my most-played list for quite a while, but Bored to Death eventually passed it up and is currently my #1 most-played song according to last.fm

If we’re sharing solid Tom performances, I’m going with this video. He’s usually decent with songs like Violence, but this one is probably peak for Tom standards. Sounds particularly great in the bridge.

I vote we should eventually have Ry-Bread's illustration as the banner after this one has its run. Shits hilarious and works.

I’ve always liked neighbourhoods. Up all night Is still probably my most played song of all time based on how many times I listened to it when it released.

I'm a bit torn on how I want blink. It was frustrating being a fan of blink from 2009 and onwards. No news at all sometimes. It'd be quiet as hell for almost a year or 2. No information regarding new albums or songs. That's how it was. Sure Neighborhoods was decent and DED was a step in the right direction. But blink are still way capable of more if Tom was committed. But it'd be like a new album every 7-10 years where Tom can actually commit. I could live with blink taking years to start work on an album as long as Tom would actually commit to it. Mark would form side projects in the process too. But I wouldn't want them doing the same shit as they were doing with empty promises and not really working as a band. I wouldn't want blink to be the way they were from 2009-2014. As for the Skiba era of blink, there is just the same amount of frustration. Just the frustrations are over completely different things. I'd rather have a producer that isn't as hands on as Feldman and just let Mark & Skiba write what is natural to them. Mark's natural songwriting sound is +44. It shows on everything he writes where he takes full control of where the song is going. It'd most likely be a blend of +44/Trio. But instead we've got a forced rehash of generic pop punk that blink were never part of even in the Enema/TOYPAJ days. They became just another generic pop punk band. Now they're getting help of songwriting teams. I don't want blink to be that way either. If the two options are blink from 2009-2014 and blink with producers and songwriting teams that are too hands on, then I'd rather blink break up and Mark & Travis reform +44 and Tom continue with AVA and his projects.

Makes me smile remembering how when Neighborhoods came out everyone shit all over it and said blink was dead. And now it's some kind of classic

My favorite part of Neighborhoods was that they just said "fuck it" to writing bridges.

Sounds like Alan Rickman is doing quite the opposite...

I couldn't stand either initially but I had an emotional past couple days, my wife blew me and swallowed for the first time, and I woke up to nightmares and hungover on pain pills. I got to work early at 4AM And put on rebel girl and was surprised to say I really enjoyed it. But that's the state I had to get to.

It isn't close at all. It's better, by miles even.

Yeah if they did Give Me One Good Reason and most other blink songs without acoustic, Tom will sound shit like 70-80% of the time. He's still capable of the odd performance where he's good. He's decent here. Can tell he's actually trying there. I think he's decent here too. Especially on Always. Not perfect but it's listenable. Most times he's way worse though. Same with AVA. I find him even worse with AVA than blink when it comes to live performances.

Blue green eyes.

I'm something of a slut.

An example of someone who's voice changed but he still cared about his fans and wanting to put effort into his music for those fans. Tom is an example of a dude being lazy and then explaining away the shittiness of it with dumb excuses about violins and flow.

Yes! That compilation album was one of my most-played cds ever.

I actually was kind of annoyed by Shut Up back in the day but I like it more now