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The blink 182 general discussion topic


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14 hours ago, Kay said:

I was really skeptical because there was a clip before we heard the full thing. 

I remember going upstairs in my student house, sitting in our converted attic, back against the wall, big headphones out, cross legged, pressing play and being like "oh god this might be awful" and when the first chorus broke I actually cried because it was close enough haha. 

I literally have FB memories of that day saying shit like - 

I think the first blink effect really got to me at first but definitely wore off by the time neighbourhoods came out haha, I was hoping for the same reaction when I first heard Bored To Death but it was the total opposite. so sad. I'll probably never be that happy to hear new blink again. 

It is sad. That spark or feeling blink always gave me will most likely never effect me as drastic as it once did. It was almost a warming dependence. The excitement I had for the album launch, will never be repeated ever. 

 

This is growing up.

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On 7/15/2019 at 4:03 AM, Kay said:

I was really skeptical because there was a clip before we heard the full thing. 

I remember going upstairs in my student house, sitting in our converted attic, back against the wall, big headphones out, cross legged, pressing play and being like "oh god this might be awful" and when the first chorus broke I actually cried because it was close enough haha. 

I literally have FB memories of that day saying shit like - 

I think the first blink effect really got to me at first but definitely wore off by the time neighbourhoods came out haha, I was hoping for the same reaction when I first heard Bored To Death but it was the total opposite. so sad. I'll probably never be that happy to hear new blink again. 

i remember this very visceral reaction too that day. listening to the KROQ stream. i had only just become a fan in '09 but i swear i'd probably listened to blink -- and BCR, and AVA, and +44 -- every day of my life for the two and a half years in between. i knew everything about them, and had just immersed myself. my excitement was at an all-time high, and i did the same as you, i put on headphones and sat back in my bed as stryker pressed play. i knew it wasn't their best, and also knew deep down it was a little off, but like you said, it felt close enough to me and even today that's how it feels too. i can kind of retcon it as "classic blink" now, especially in regards to what comes later

of course, when BTD came out, i was just like "oooooohhhhhkay." it felt like it was going through the motions a little too hard. for all of UAN's failures, and it's a horrible song, it at least tries to push the band in interesting directions, and the riff ain't bad

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2 minutes ago, boxelder said:

i remember this very visceral reaction too that day. listening to the KROQ stream. i had only just become a fan in '09 but i swear i'd probably listened to blink -- and BCR, and AVA, and +44 -- every day of my life for the two and a half years in between. i knew everything about them, and had just immersed myself. my excitement was at an all-time high, and i did the same as you, i put on headphones and sat back in my bed as stryker pressed play. i knew it wasn't their best, and also knew deep down it was a little off, but like you said, it felt close enough to me and even today that's how it feels too. i can kind of retcon it as "classic blink" now, especially in regards to what comes later

of course, when BTD came out, i was just like "oooooohhhhhkay." it felt like it was going through the motions a little too hard. for all of UAN's failures, and it's a horrible song, it at least tries to push the band in interesting directions, and the riff ain't bad

the "and all these demons, they keep me up all night" is actually a really nice little blink moment. like the song fails in so many ways but it's sonically interesting and a bit weird but still sounded like them. to me BTD sounds like someone trying to sound like blink and failing. 

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17 minutes ago, Kay said:

the "and all these demons, they keep me up all night" is actually a really nice little blink moment. like the song fails in so many ways but it's sonically interesting and a bit weird but still sounded like them. to me BTD sounds like someone trying to sound like blink and failing. 

to me everything post-tom has sounded like blink trying to sound like the bands that came after blink. it's still a bummer to me. neighborhoods isn't great but it's aged nicely

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I love the video of Stryker  because that was exactly my level of excitement too.

But, just as others have said, it wasn't the same reaction with Bored to Death. Sometimes I wonder if part of that disappointment has to do with age and general jadedness that comes with growing up. Blink stopped being my everything by the time Neighborhoods came out and although I still consider myself heavily invested in the band, I'm not as 'immersed' (to steal boxelder's word) as I was ten years ago. I've also learnt a lot more about music and have higher expectations for what I choose to listen to. I know there are objective reasons why one single/album is better than the other, though.

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3 hours ago, mahtmd said:

But, just as others have said, it wasn't the same reaction with Bored to Death. Sometimes I wonder if part of that disappointment has to do with age and general jadedness that comes with growing up. Blink stopped being my everything by the time Neighborhoods came out and although I still consider myself heavily invested in the band, I'm not as 'immersed' (to steal boxelder's word) as I was ten years ago. I've also learnt a lot more about music and have higher expectations for what I choose to listen to. I know there are objective reasons why one single/album is better than the other, though.

that question comes up for me too, and it's easy to say "well, i guess this is growing up" *rimshot*. but i don't think that's the case. coming from a critical perspective, i just find the music to be lacking, and the majority of fans agree.

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I actually had a similar reaction to Bored To Death that I did to Up All Night: super stoked and all felt right in the Blink world.

Up All Night was much more powerful and meaningful because of the context surrounding it obviously, I'll never forget listening to that for the first time. But Bored To Death really did make me feel like the new lineup had nailed a track that reaffirmed Blink and sounded almost like a greatest hits package rolled into one song. Which is obviously exactly what they were going for at that time. I fucking blasted that song when it came out. It was only later when the album came out that the experience soured for me haha.

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11 hours ago, mahtmd said:

Blink stopped being my everything by the time Neighborhoods came out and although I still consider myself heavily invested in the band, I'm not as 'immersed' (to steal boxelder's word) as I was ten years ago.

blink stopped being my everything around when enema came out, but there's still been plenty for me to admire since. but i think you're right, 'immersion' only happens once (probably when you first fall in love with a band) and it's simply impossible to reclaim, no matter how stellar the later music might be.

it's sort of a fandom version of you can never go home again.

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18 hours ago, boxelder said:

to me everything post-tom has sounded like blink trying to sound like the bands that came after blink. it's still a bummer to me. neighborhoods isn't great but it's aged nicely

I can't get inside any of Mark, Tom, or Travis' head but in retrospect my gut says Tom was just done with blink after the whole Boxcar dilemna, he was changing, he realized Mark and him would never be close again but he still had a little heart left for something that was so much a part of him for so long and gave it his one last all on Untitled, sort of like his love letter to blink 182.  Tom might be crazy, but he is pretty true to him self artistically, while Mark was always about the success, fortune, and fame experience.  Tom moved on, possibly not being financially aware of the difficulty of 'keeping' wealth versus making all that money at once.  Tom's ego got a little carried away but he couldn't go back, damage was done.  Neighborhoods, while it did age greatly, was clearly Tom at a bit rock bottom needing help, more than likely financially.  He 100% used the easiest answer to force a reunion he didn't want to do with blink.  The body language showed he could never fully commit back to it as it was in the past to him.  He, still being an effortless songwriter that he is, helped make a decent but offbeat album.  It was a bit underwhelming, even Up All Night to me, partly because it was so confusing at the time what was going on. Many of us were young-ish still and were expecting a fairy tale story line of this happy exciting reunion, not understanding the truth of it really.  It still had blink elements, so I enjoyed the fuck out of it while I could, and listened to DED a lot too (I think Tom matured a bit here and realized how much blink gave him and how douchey he was sort of getting and made something more modest).  Being such an outcast album, it has a bit of a charm to it now and really did age well now that many of us have accepted this is how life goes a lot of the time and is never storybook like you see things growing up. California obviously helping it age even better being such a contrast to everything that album is.

Mark, being completely bitter and broken had to find a way to move on and went on to what would be a great marketing grab, a new band that clearly has some songs focused on the breakup of blink and his anger towards Tom.  We have to remember, blink was MASSIVE back in the day, everyone was eager to see what they did next and +44 had a chance with some more elements, Mark just gave up real quick.  Mark probably held out a 10% chance Tom actually cared with Neighborhoods, he knew how painful that would be if he was fooled after such a long hiatus.  He didn't really want to admit it at first, but clearly was frustrated and angry during the tours.  The Neighborhoods album he was really off, just could not move on from the glory days (for him) in Dammit, Enema and Toypaj.  Mark was always a college guy at heart, he hated the idea of maturity that Tom wanted.  I do think he's found more inner peace, but musically the guy is pretty lost and all over the place trying to make decisions, guitar skills didn't fade though.  He needs Tom's crazy and lack of hesitation to balance him out.

Travis was just along for the ride.  

 

Bolded the actual answer to quote part.  Not being pretentious, just don't know why I wrote a book.

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I think it's easy to skip over chemistry when it comes to working with other musicians. 

It annoys me that they don't let Matts influence through, but I've got to wonder if maybe the writing chemistry just isn't there between Mark and Matt. they were going to do that side project before and nothing came of it, they allegedly wrote a bunch of stuff for blink before feldmann and we heard none of it, and even when Feldmann takes a step back they hire a bunch of people to write the simplest shit. 

I've tried writing with various musicians over the years, and in that time I've only found one drummer I'm comfortable working with, and one guitarist who I can write with in a back and forth way. Even in my old band I couldn't get a decent collaborative writing flow with the guitarist, it didn't work so I did the majority of the writing work. now obviously this is just based on my own experiences but I've found it very difficult to gel well enough with other musicians to write good stuff with them, and I wonder if other musicians find it just as difficult. if that's the case, maybe Mark is completely lost without Tom as his main chemistry buddy, and that's why he's hiring in others to just do it for him. 

Mark had enough creativity and steam on his own to do +44 because he was in a dark place and had a lot of passion to get out. when blink returned with Matt we saw basically none of that, and we know we had barely anything from him on Neighborhoods either.

Meanwhile with Simple Creatures (whilst I'm not a fan) he seems to be able to work with that ATL kid just fine.

So maybe Mark struggles to write with the majority of people and Matt is unfortunately one of them?  

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