whales

I had a dream once where I was hanging out with Tom for like a whole day. We were doing regular stuff like shopping and running errands, but I was also secretly trying not to fan girl. It was hilarious to wake up from

new music is here! absolutely loving these so far. Travis brought some great stuff out of them

in response to a few posts - yeah, I think the bit about Jen was very revealing; i don't need to know about their personal lives on that level, i just think it's clear that Tom was under a ton of stress at home and work and everything was made worse because of it. a lot more complex than either Mark or Tom wanted to really get into, so instead they both went with the "tom doesn't want to be away from his family anymore" line. i know i personally have thought i needed to make big moves to change stress in my life, then realized after the fact that its just stress/anxiety that makes me run from hard situations. everything both Tom and Mark did throughout their story makes a lot of sense from a human perspective. everyone has trauma and hurts people because of it. hopefully they can/have truly worked through things on a deeply personal level to allow them to be happy with themselves as people, regardless of the band

maybe this belongs in the album thread, but i've really been loving No Fun. I love me some normal Tom lyrics

that was a boring read, you both need better hobbies. any idea when we're getting new music? I don't use social media much at all these days.

Picked up and read the book in two days last week while on vacation. I really loved it, especially the first half; the way he sets up the foundation of blink by painting such a vivid picture of how they grew up was really neat. It was really well done. If I wanted to critique it, I'd pick the latter half; it felt like he didn't really want to talk about blink much at all during the California/Matt era, which was a shame. I wasn't looking for more tea, but I don't really feel like he said much of anything, I guess? Matt was great, we loved California, NINE was all writing with outside writers, moving on. It felt like he really skimmed over that section of their history without sharing how he felt about it in any real sense.

while I like the majority of the Green Day music I've heard, I do find them distinctly generic in comparison to blink, which is probably why they're more popular. i'm actually surprised they've stayed relevant given how every song i listen to sounds pretty much the same, but i guess that's part of the appeal for people.

yeah, i vaguely remember him saying things around when Lifeforms was released about how he felt like he had finally sort of mixed all of his tastes into one record, and i'd say he's mostly doing that with blink now. i think we're all better off for it. i think the only way he goes back to AVA is if he wants to make U2 space rock again haha

if Travis wrote it, the others liked it, and it's accurate to their story, why's that a bad thing? i dunno, i'd get being bothered if no one from the band wrote it, but it's pretty neat that Travis cares enough to write lyrics like that.

the older i get, the more i can see how weak the song writing was in earlier records especially. Tom desperately needed a proper producer to help him reign in his worst qualities. that said, i still love AVA for 2 reason: 1. nostalgia 2. i do think Tom's vision is clear. you can tell he's making what he wanted to make, holding nothing back. and i enjoy the simplicity of that experience. while the LOVE albums are fairly critiqued for being rehashes, i'd actually argue they're more coherent and polished from start to finish compared to WDNTW and I-Empire. that's not a knock on those because i love them, but he fully ran with the space rock thing in a way that holds up pretty well. i really like Lifeforms, but I think it has less of an identity than earlier records do. whether that's good or not probably depends on personal preference. i also just don't care for the Rubin style of production, including when it shows up on certain blink songs. AVA is raw Tom work, like it or hate it, but it was never going to be mainstream because he needs others to turn that stuff into gold.

yeah, as soon as I moved out of graphic design as a career i was able to finally drop adobe for affinity. super worth it so far, but i'm not sure if i could have chosen it if i was still in the field full time.

some really based takes in here. AI is garbage. that's all I have to add.

Anyone here like Good Hangs?

Can't Go Back is my current favorite. Feels very blink in all the ways I like. Boxcar guitars, Mark and Tom vocal contrast, chill drums, catchy and moody. I simply love to hear it

My two cents: 1. a return album like this does better by the fans when it's made with the right attention to nostalgia; it appeals to those of us who missed Tom in the band, pays respect to the deep lore (Terrified), and "rights" the "wrongs" done by Cali/Nine by resetting time a bit. Hey, we're the blink who wrote Anthem pt 2, here's pt 3! It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's more appealing to a large fan base and gets them back into better graces with people who care too much (me). anyone who didn't like blink before is very unlikely to start now. 2. as much as I love the album, there's plenty to be said and discussed about the production and the future. I look forward to seeing what they do going forward, as I think they now have the foundation back in place and could keep trying to push themselves creatively. that said, i don't see this as a rehash at all. I think it's more creative than biased reviewers are going to give it credit for, but you have to listen to it more than they're likely willing to. I'm loving the album, and I'm thankful for that. The boys are back, and I look forward to getting more music.

Album has its hooks in me https://imgur.com/a/unlcN53 Edit - I was hoping this would auto embed because this forum's max image size is terrible. Around 300 total streams so far

There's something so...soothing? about the melodies. I'm constantly singing "What if I'm not like the others? A broken man, a Frankenstein..."

Had the album on on repeat this whole week, already in my top 5 albums this year ?

Really impressive to me considering it's a slow acoustic song

Favorite song so far is Terrified. Definitely gonna be my most played from the album for a while

I appreciate the leak links from those who sent them over, but I've decided to wait until it's out officially so I can sit and enjoy it properly. I've been in the office and want to feel my feelings all alone at home ?

Does anyone have the full album to share? No big deal if not, I’ll listen at midnight, just figured I’d check since I’m late to the party.

waiting til Friday to listen to anymore so I can have lots unspoiled ?

it's a song that's made for an album sequence. it's not gonna be most people's favorite, it might get skipped a lot, but one day it'll become your favorite song for a week and you'll develop a proper appreciation for the way it fits into the album.

Incredibly fun song and so different from MTYK. This album is going to rocket up my stream list for the end of the year haha