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Yep, the Skiba era could've been legendary, but they gagged my boy.

The problem with the Skiba era wasn’t Skiba

horrible tune. mark and skiba having to sing over anodyne copy-paste melodies and hollow, craven lyrics that don't speak to anything personal or real to either of them. adam's song riff. loud, uninspired triggered drums. like there's nothing worse than songs like this right? why were they doing this? i understand that by 2016 they had abandoned any pretense of giving skiba an equal creative role, and that appeared to work fine on california. but by this era (and tbf, some of OMT), it felt like they were soliciting songs from songwriter camps and swallowed up by major-label machinery, doing whatever they could to stay relevant (xxxtentacion, powfu, etc). hearing this is like hearing the b-sides of california deluxe -- castoffs of castoffs. honestly, the whoah-ohs got way too much hate back then, but hearing them in this leaked track is like a war flashback. 2019-21 the darkest days in the band's whole existence, breakup era included. i really hope this stuff gets covered in an honest way in mark's book, but i'm not holding my breath.

Let’s just pretend the skiba era never happened. The band should have ended. Skiba ffs. Cali and Nine are a fucking disgrace to the catalogue

My thoughts exactly. I have no bad blood with Skiba, and I really like the dude and what he did. My main disappointment was Tom’s absence from the band, combined with Feldman’s annoying influence to further damage things.

Alright I’ve let this one digest a little bit and thought about what folks have been saying here. My main qualm: There’s just no god damn soul in these things. Blink-182 to me has always been a trio of cool dudes who have such a rich bond and culture together. They’re pranksters who grew up skateboarding, surfing, listening to punk music, making dick jokes, hilariously striking out with girls, trolling people, and so much more. They’re a fucking riot. The character of this group just poured out into every thing they did as a band, especially in the early days. For example: Mark trying to make Tom laugh and fuck up the songs again on stage, the band recording home videos of themselves naked and trolling people, Mark and Tom saying heinous shit to crowds, the dudes laughing their asses off while hanging out and recording music. That’s really what it’s about. And that’s their authentic brand. What a fun group to hang out with. These dudes had a great culture they promoted to the world, and that naturally drew people to them. Most notably: this was all captured in the writing of their songs. Each song was like a capsule that was filled entirely to the brim with their authentic characters. The punk, the humor, the cool, the dorkiness, the feeding off of eachother’s ideas during the writing process, the fun moments they had during the recording process, and so forth. All that shoved in there. The end result was an album of songs that were jam packed with their raw and organic personalities. Sure it was glazed with production and cheesy bits at times, but overall, the ingredients is what made the songs as good as they were. In fact, it was so authentic that when the band went on a hiatus, the friendships did too. With these Feldman era songs - you can say what you want about the elements, the production quality, or their playing ability. Sure, the harmonies of their voices sound good together. The mixing and tones are decent. The songs are fast paced. There’s some melody. And sure the guitar work is impressive at moments. But so fucking what? When you strip off the production quality and the overused formula that created these things, you’re left to dry with almost nothing. Obviously some songs had “it”, but for the most part, there’s very little raw ingredients of anything authentic. It’s almost like these are scripted songs, and they’re just actors playing their roles. To really drive this point home, let’s take the thought process of this song: “Alright Mark’s going to do verse 1. Matt, you’re on verse 2. Yep, that again. Chorus? Fuck that, let’s put some woah’s in there. Alright, we need a riff. Let’s play Adam’s Song and steal the thing again. Great, now let’s get that juicy crunchy palm mute guitar in there like we did the last time. Oh and let’s finally cap it off now with something we’ve totally not done a hundred times before: a dramatic snare drum buildup. Those blink fans will definitely EAT THIS SHIT UP.” Are we stupid? Is this turning into Netflix/Hollywood now just mass producing the same thing? This isn’t to bash Skiba at all. He’s a sweet guy and has an overwhelming amount of soul in Alkaline Trio. (And I’ll admit Nine maybe had more authenticity than California as Matt’s influence was stronger). Overall though, Feldman definitely just tanked any shot of an organic Matt/Mark dynamic coming strongly to surface, imo. The machine entirely took over these songs. Instead of letting an organic dynamic unfold, it instead just tried really hard to emulate blink-182. But it never came close. With One More Time, despite being written so many years later, it still found a way to have them showcase their raw selves. The authenticity is there of three guys sharing something real together: the chemistry, the honesty, and the unfiltered personality that made them who they are. You can just hear the weight of their shared history, jokes, struggles, flaws, and love for eachother. While I’m happy and thankful blink at least put some decent stuff out there during Tom’s absence from the band (despite my criticism of there being no soul), this unreleased song confirms that the band was just going to go down a course with something significant seriously missing. I’ve never been happier today with blink making the right move forward. Rant over.

A big fat fucking bone?

Dude Ranch at #8 is so fucking bad.

in a lot of the US music industry, there's songwriter camps where professional teams get together to write and pitch songs for the biggest artists. here's an article (and another) with some insight on how that's done. big artists like rihanna made careers out of essentially covering songs by big writers like max martin, and in modern country music, it's the rule. it's always been my opinion that there's at least a few songs on california and NINE that are clearly bought and paid for songs from those types of camps (bottom of the ocean, scumbag, IRWIHY, hungover you, remember to forget me, etc). honestly i think some songs OMT started that way too (the title track, take me in, etc). personally i think that travis recognized that the songs they were writing with skiba weren't working, and a fresh set of eyes was a solid idea. (that's what jerry finn was at the end of the day, and i think he would have received songwriting residuals in the modern age). but i think travis also leveraged their momentum and popularity into that equation, and hit upon that partnering with outside voices was both beneficial commercially and music to the ears of the major labels. plenty of artists (aerosmith, et al) did the same to have a second act of mainstream volatility. it eliminated the need for the band to take a different or darker direction with skiba, and kept it anonymous enough to be enjoyable by casual listeners. plus it allowed for them to cash in on nostalgia with the throwback sound of california. but by NINE -- really by the vegas residency -- they had realized that not only was skiba as a stand-in not working, but rapidly felt soulless. that's why NINE, and its ensuing tour, was such a mess from conception to rollout. it's why it's my opinion that they began to rely more on those aforementioned songwriter camps (and why skiba slowly started to phase out his involvement when it became obvious they were rudderless). evidence for this is not only present on the big bump in songwriter credits on NINE (15 new outside names), or skiba's visible diminishing involvement (quarantine, chainsmokers, etc). the miley cyrus version of IRWIHY only sort-of adds juice to this idea... you can find tons of early versions of songs with different vocalists, and gives rise to the idea that the band were just essentially covering songs pitched to them by songwriters. travis was both surprisingly comfortable in this type of environment, which led to his work with MGK and his DTA imprint. again, this is only my opinion, but that's the vibe i get from how those years went and how quickly they faded into the rearview. that's not also to say i don't really like a few songs off both cali or NINE, or that utilizing outside songwriters was a mistake. for a lot of fans i feel like it was such a surprising development that it seemed like implicit acknowledgement of their lack of direction. that and blink was built off the partnership of mark and tom, and its somewhat insular/honest back-and-forth process. having other voices in the room at the get-go (or, in the case of heaven, without mark or skiba there) rubbed a lot people the wrong way.

"It’s almost like these are scripted songs, and they’re just actors playing their roles." This sums of a lot of these songs perfectly, but there were some exceptions here and there ofcourse.

Other Side

He got it wrong.

The songs on OMT are no less formulaic, etc. etc. than those on California. Feldmann may as well have produced OMT. You can easily argue that OMT is even more "Feldy sounding" than California The biggest difference in the two albums is that Tom is a better singer and guitarist for blink. But the songs themselves are not some kind of drastic creative departure from the Skiba era lol

yes i was surprised to see them insist on doing mark v1 skiba v2 over and over and over comming from some of the most elite songwriters and creative ppl, that was extremly odd it hated how they were so scared of just having matt alone in some songs and how they chose instead that forced uncreative v1 v2 thing thxfully it doesnt bother me too much for most songs i like but by album 2 i was realy tired of it and is partly why i consider it a very subpar album despite some of its great songs

+44 isn’t a blink album, so why would he rank it amongst blink albums?

I’ve got a bone to pick with Skiba He could have definitely done better live in the second half with covering songs. But the whole thing was fucked by then so I can’t really blame him. Hard to stay motivated or care when they’ve stripped you of all your qualities. Glad he got paid. Deserved it. But it went on way too long. Would have much rather had just one (singular) album to look back on as ‘the non-Tom’ album.

That's why I try not to call it the Skiba era haha. It's the Non-Tom Era.

I hope some day we get at least one run of a four piece, I think it would be really cool and work well. The Skiba era tunes aren't that much different than the OMT era, but it's a huge advantage having Tom vocals and guitar

Full song is here

If you never left and dance with me the goats

i am a huge fan of bad news, but it terms of all-time, i feel like DWM takes the cake. one of the only modern singles that feels like it holds a candle to anything off greatest hits. cool riff, danceable drums, moronic chorus in the best way, classic bridge, soaring outro.

Super easy, it's DWM. One of they've best songs they've ever written; instant classic.

I feel like he automatically puts records in slots depending on the lineup and current status, rather than the quality. My guess is DR is so low because it's a Scott album.

Saw this on Chorus and got a laugh from it: NordVPN has released their annual list of most commonly used passwords with 'blink182' on it at number 155 out of the total 200 passwords listed.

I won't go down that fuckin rabbit hole again though...

HISALP and Turpentine are both amazing songs

Turpentine. A fucking classic

Skiba is gold. As someone pointed out. He was not the problem. Feldmann was. I don't remember if I said this before but for me it always was a fantasy to have Matt and Mark doing some kind of side project, some sort of crossover between dark, rough, deep Skiba and also dark, deep and rough Mark- +55 plus AK3. Somehow, stars aligned and made it happen under blink's name. It was not the best output, though. Not either what I craved for or what I'd ever imagined, but I think is the closest I'd ever hear something as I'd love to hear.

So is this (and the couple other random songs that have leaked over the years) from a lost 2020-21 album? That's pretty interesting. This song has some nice pieces, it definitely has the stank of being written by randos and doesn't really go anywhere, but it's pleasant enough. I'm really curious what kind of insights Mark is going to give about this era in his book! This is all rehashed but while I'm thankful that Skiba stepped in and the band stayed alive long enough for the reunion to happen, music-wise it should've just been a different band all along.

what a dumb comment. song is nothing like that.

Skiba's half of the song is great. I'm happy with where things are at now but I sure do miss his voice sometimes.

Yeah, I never thought about it this way, but it's evident from the ranking. It doesn't matter if the songs are good, he just doesn't see them as good as the songs he's made with the best blink lineup possible. The Dude Ranch anniversary tour is never going to happen.

Was about to post this, I just deleted my previous post. Thanks lol. I had no idea Matt was gonna be on it outside of doing woah’s. Got chills when he came in. He sounds amazing. I dig the song but it needs like a chorus or something (if there wasn’t already one). Didn’t Matt say that the album they were working on after NINE was actually completed before it got shelved due to Mark’s cancer and Tom rejoining? I think they were gonna release a deluxe edition for NINE, but that got scrapped. There was also a collaboration EP they had planned but IDK if anything ever leaked from it. “Same As It Ever Was” may have been one of them, as it was very EDM-y. I figured they would've added the other collabs from 2018-2019 to the EP and included a couple others. I’m guessing “Love’s Not Pretty” and this song would be on the hypothetical 3rd blink-182 album with Matt Skiba. I think everything worked out in the end but fuck I miss Matt sometimes. IDK why Mark has to hold the Skiba era hostage but I’d pay for all of the unreleased material, even if it was released nonchalantly in some gimmicky format on his website.

Damn, not a bad track at all on first listen. Do we know if this is Cali, Cali Deluxe, or Nine era? Or meant for a future release with Skiba still in

What a cunt

Don’t request illegal file sharing links.

@Elite Takes - this is jan another banger just dropped