Nosferatu

Neighborhoods is a weird one. You just know when it's Mark playing guitar as the songs he wrote all have that bassy power chord sound like +44 has. You can even hear it on the In Transit song he did with Pete Wentz. Even that Nothing + Nobody 1990s remix sounds exactly like a +44 song DED the EP is much better for it, as they recorded it as a united band even if it was forced. The title track is clearly a Mark song but you can tell it's Tom playing the guitar on it. Imagine if Heart's All Gone had Tom on the guitar and they had the call and response vocals for it like they do on the live version. And imagine if they had a more creative bridge instead of the one they used (it does suit and work for the song tbh but the bridge still could've been way better). It's obviously a good album but just suffers as it's just Mark writing songs then Tom would appear once a month just to record his vocal parts or harmonies. The Tom songs were probably just half assed by Tom in his own studio, then he'd mail them to Mark who would record his parts. Obviously he played bass in all the songs as it's clearly his playing style The only song I feel like they took proper care of is Up All Night. It's clearly a unified effort. They clearly worked hard on the song (although they did take a good damn 2 years to finish the thing cause Tom wasn't committed). It wasn't a song they rushed like most of the songs. Yet weirdly enough at the same time, it's still not the greatest mix but I think that was just the norm for that era. The mix of it doesn't sound that different to the Love albums, which Tom clearly put his heart into I think Neighborhoods despite everything proves how great at songwriting they are though. Even when one member isn't assed, even when it's not a unified effort, they can still be decent to amazing. Kaleidoscope without any input from Tom (besides his vocals) is a 5/5 track

That fill in the last chorus when all the guitars take a pause is ace

The build up intros of Anthem Part 2, Violence, Dumpweed, Carousel, Ghost on the Dance Floor, Bridges of Asthenia, Feeling This, Here's Your Letter, Adam's Song, Everytime I Look For You, You Don't Know What You've Got, Everyone Everywhere, Obvious, Please Take Me Home, Verses of Hey I'm Sorry, Pathetic, Kaleidoscope, Feeling This, Stockholm Syndrome, Natives, 6/8, Turpentine, Violence Choruses of Feeling This, Wishing Well, Obvious, More Than You Know, First Time, No Heart to Speak Of, Last Train Home, Violence, When I Was Young, Kaleidoscope, Here's Your Letter, Untitled, All In My Head Pre-choruses of Kaleidoscope, PLG, Every Time I Look For You, Boxing Day Outros of Anthem Part 3, No Heart to Speak Of, Obvious, Easy Target, Everyone Everywhere, Feeling This, Pretty much every Tom moment when he shouts like Feeling This verses, Stockholm Syndrome verses, More Than You Know pre-choruses, Go choruses, Easy Target bridge or every moment Tom and Mark do the call and response vocals or when they harmonise and it just sounds so damn good like the verses of Ghost on the Dance Floor, pre-chorus of Boxing Day Love the heavy riffs like Up All Night, Snake Charmer, Obvious, Stockholm Syndrome or the one note riffs like Dumpweed, Adam's Song, Stay Together for the Kids, Reckless Abandon, Wendy Clear, Dammit or whenever Travis goes crazy like the I'm Lost Without You outro, Fighting the Gravity Outro, the intro of Heart's All Gone, outro of Generational Divide There's so many good moments even on the albums I'm not a big fan of

Yeah, outside of a select few songs or moments I don't hear California in the One More Time album. I too see what Ghent is saying though. Terrified was originally for BCR. Turpentine and More Than You Know clearly had a lot of involvement from Tom. They don't belong on California at all California and Nine barely has any riffs. Bad News could've easily been a Dude Ranch song if it was less polished. Couldn't be anymore different to California. Dance With Me may have the typical four chord song structure like a lot of California but the riff alone makes the song way less generic I could see If You Never Left being a California song but even that has a lot of simple but interesting guitar parts unlike California. Everyone Everywhere is basically BCR meets AVA's Dream Walker/Lifeforms era. One Night Stand has a riff that Tom has been teasing for almost 10 years on his acoustic clips. Blink Wave and Every Other Weekend are 80's sounding songs. I don't hear anything new wavy or 80's on California. Maybe When We Were Young? But the chorus isn't something you'd hear on California either. You Don't Know What You've Got has a bridge that's way too interesting to be on California. Maybe Fell in Love but the guitar playing in the verses are typical Tom. It has that Voyager vibe from AVA. Other Side has an intro similar to Even If She Falls. The point is that Tom is far from a generic songwriter. Yeah, there's moments that could be on California but there's a lot more happening on OMT than woahs, gang vocals and Adam's Song riffs being on nearly every intro or verse

Not gonna lie, i'm shocked there's no woahs or gang vocals

I can never get over Anthem. It might be my favourite song on Enema. Then there's Adam's Song which is just a fucking banger. It really is the perfect pop punk album. Every song on it is gold. Even ATST rocks despite it being overplayed

I still think it would've had the same issues as Neighborhoods even with Jerry Finn producing if it was entirely on Tom's terms. Tom was willing to record a new blink album by sending ideas back and forth through emails. Mark at the time felt the music should all be worked on in the same room as each other. Although he did mention in that interview from 2006 that Tom suggested recording at his home rather than a studio and obviously he felt that suggestion wasn't reasonable either because they lived a couple of hours away from each other (which is kinda weird because a lot of people most days do travel to and from work/uni with 2 hour distances from their homes so it's easily doable).

I made a playlist of the Enema album with the songs all in their exact orders. Only difference between the playlist and the album is that I added Man Overboard at the end to make it 13 tracks instead of 12. It flows nicely after Anthem as the closing song despite the fact Anthem is also a great closing song on the album

Tom looks like one sexy bastard in that photo

Mark seems to change his mind about his rankings. California was his number 1 when he ranked his favourite blink albums during the Skiba era Now he ranks OMT up there, which is a fine album but not up there with Untitled/Enema/Dude Ranch. The Untitled album was number 2 on his rankings back then and his rankings from few days ago. I guess deep down he considers that album to be number 1. He'll give his true opinion about OMT a few years from now. Surprised he has California as high as he does though I get why he doesn't seem to rate Dude Ranch as high. A lot of bands hate their earlier work but he's gotta give Dude Ranch some props. It's a masterpiece and IMO one of the two best pop punk albums ever.

As someone from UK, I've played all 3 of Football, Rugby and American Football. My worst injury was from playing football and it left me on crutches for 3 weeks. I played 30-40 matches a year, so there was a bigger chance of getting injured. Despite American Football and Rugby being more dangerous, I didn't play them much so it meant there was lesser chances of getting injured. I never had anything bad happen to me in Rugby at all. American Football though? Yeah, fuck that. Even with the pads I was always getting hurt. Nothing major but definitely loads of bruises and aching backs for a few days. The running back position isn't kind on the body. If i stuck with that I'd probably end up on crutches a lot more than once

Haha I noticed that the other day but I assumed I was just hearing things in my head 😂

I like the bridge of the song but Mark's vocals come in way too quick after the chorus. It doesn't work after the chorus. It'd be better if the bridge was doing the same thing without vocals then repeat itself, this time with Mark on the vocals

When I first heard Childhood I thought I hated it. My first response was what the hell is this? It was just so grating but it eventually grew on me. I think it's a very good song now

Toast and Bananas from Cheshire Cat Waggy from Dude Ranch Anthem & Adam's Song from Enema Everytime I Look For You, Time to Break Up, Please Take Me Home from TOYPAJ Feeling This, Asthenia, Here's Your Letter, Obvious from the untitled album Dogs Eating Dogs from Dogs Eating Dogs Los Angeles, Kings of the Weekend, Misery, San Diego from California On Some Emo Shit from Nine You Don't Know What You've Got, Turpentine, Everyone Everywhere from OMT Stay Together for the Kids (2004), Down (2004), The Rock Show (2004), A Letter to Elise (2004) for live songs