There was this underlying sense of melancholy when I got home on February 22, 2005. KROQ was playing in my bedroom as I heard the news that Blink-182 had broken up. A lot of feelings swirled inside of me, including this disillusioned sense that they were only getting going. Their self-titled album from 2003 had marked a turning point and while I wasn’t mature enough to fully appreciate it, I nevertheless rotated it a lot while looking for clues as to its deeper significance.
After all, this was one of those pivotal bands in my life. Had I not picked up “Take Your Pants and Jacket” at an outlet mall in Las Vegas, NV, I don’t exactly know where I’d be. The furious drums of “Anthem Part 2” reshaped my brain. By the time I entered the middle school world, it was 2002 and we were in that sweet spot where “Enema of the State” was a cherished record. Blink-182 was shorthand for something deeper in my social bonding. I couldn’t even tell you what I’d be without them and that initial hiatus was a bit painful.
Sure they ended on a high note, but you kind of wanted more. Part of being a fan in the early 2000s was witnessing the band becoming something more. They were no longer that “All the Small Things” group who parodied The Backstreet Boys and ran naked through the streets. They were starting to branch out and take on different projects. Some of them, like Box Car Racer, were brief glimpses into individual personas. Travis Barker would also partner with Transplants which were early signs of his love of hip-hop. The band was capable of so much more, and it's what made their side projects fascinating even if they were flashes in the proverbial pan.
This was BEFORE their 2005 break-up, but it informs everything that followed. Blink-182 was no longer their singular outlet for expression. They were signing endorsements for companies like Atticus and Famous Stars and Straps. Whatever had united them years before was now starting to fade. They would come back, but not without first showing just how different they all had become.
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| Tom Delonge |
Delonge has gotten the most crap for his outside work. This largely stemmed from many believing that he sabotaged their 2011 reunion album “Neighborhoods.” The signs were literally in the stars. He created the “space rock” band Angels & Airwaves which had more in common with U2 and Pink Floyd than his more scatological pop-punk tunes. It was the epitome of high falutin with concept albums and movies being made. Add in that Delonge would become involved in extraterrestrial research, and he immediately seemed like the oddball.
Sure, bassist Mark Hoppus had +44 and drummer Travis Barker was always in demand for his skills, but they were quiet compared to Delonge’s expansive rollout. +44's sound was an extension of Blink-182 with more of an electronic feel. They even had a song, "No It's Not," which they named thusly as to avoid comments about it being about their personal hurt with Delonge leaving the band. There was a sense that he would never want to make another Blink-182 record just because the music he clearly was interested in was so different.
Their self-titled album had only alluded to what was to come. Even then, the promise of a new album seemed impossible as terrible news began to appear. Delonge got skin cancer. Their beloved producer Jerry Finn died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Worst of all, Barker and former collaborator DJ A.M. got into a terrible plane crash in 2008 that caused massive injuries. This lead to reconciliation as Hoppus and Delonge began throwing around ideas. They wanted to return to the way that things used to be, and that would be present in their music.
Things kicked off in 2009, though it was not going to be the same. Barker and Hoppus would record in Los Angeles while Delonge did his part in San Diego. They conversed through e-mail with many producers and managers helping to fill in the blanks. This was Delonge’s idea because it was a good way to work around their busy schedules. The major catch was that because of this, there would be no spontaneity among the band. They were given a checklist of things to do from each other, filling in the gaps that were needed.
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| First public appearance by the band since hiatus Grammy Awards 2009 |
Even when they wanted it to be like the old days, it clearly couldn’t be. It wasn’t just that they were recording separately. It was also because there had been so much baggage in the interim. Barker was still recovering from the crash and reportedly had to attend to scabs opening during recording that bled everywhere. It also didn’t help that he lost TRV$DJAM collaborator DJ A.M. in 2009 to suicide. Everyone had some exhaustion to account for, where Hoppus even felt the need to infuse the record full of morbid imagery. Yes, the musicians who once sang songs like “Happy Holidays, You Bastard” were about to release a record so obsessed with depression that it would become divisive.
Was the band maturing by exploring such dark subjects, or was it a commentary on their inner struggle to tolerate each other?
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| Jerry Finn (blue) with the band |
There’s a question as to whether this record would be good had Jerry Finn lived. Then again, had nothing terrible happened there’s a good chance that Blink-182 would have never released “Neighborhoods.” They would be this great anomaly of a pop-punk band who ended on their weirdest, most experimental note ever. What makes it crazier is that “Blink-182” is a genuinely great record that serves as their version of “The White Album.” You get so many crazy ideas colliding to make a coherent vision. However, much like The Beatles, it was that last moment of sanity before egos inevitably drew them apart. You could tell which musician got the upper hand at any one time, but it still worked. Finn was considered a producer who roped the band in, bringing out their best work. Without him, what were they?
That’s the mentality brought to even the name “Neighborhoods.” It is suggested that the record finds the three musicians coming together with their own specific interests that they grew up with in different neighborhoods. In that way, it makes sense of just how self-aware they were of their changing ways. Then again, it’s because the trio needed to rely on instinct instead of feeding off of each other to get the record made. They prolonged recording so long that the record company, Geffen, set a deadline for them in September 2011 or face penalty fees. Delonge would joke that they probably would drive to the Geffen president’s house and drop it off at two in the morning at the last possible minute. Despite taking one of their longest periods of recording, there was still the sense that they weren’t ready to release it.
If you thought there was pressure before for Blink-182 to release an album, it was definitely truer of “Neighborhoods.” It was a reunion album for the ages with each musician bringing their own interests forward after striking out on their own. Things were going well as KROQ premiered their first single “Up All Night.” It seemed like they were evolving, incorporating Delonge’s love of hardcore like Fugazi with their more familiar pop melodies. Everything seemed to be in place. Even the second single “After Midnight” found them recalling a nostalgic charm that showed how diverse this record would be. It was the heir apparent to their 2003 record, likely to go in even loopier directions.
I’ll never say that it’s my favorite Blink-182 record. I tend to side with Delonge who shared his disappointment in the album’s lack of focus at times. This came from working in different studios, which was a problem they fixed with their next E.P. “Dogs Eating Dogs.” However, this record has only grown in stature since its release because while it’s not the last Blink-182 album, it’s the last to feature Delonge. He would get the boot in 2015 before being replaced by Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba. People are left to wonder what did him in, and it may just be that they had grown too different. The fact that their next album “California” had their first joke songs since 2001 showed just how differently Hoppus and Barker saw the band.
This isn’t to say that the record is bad. In some ways, the choice to have Delonge featured heavily on lead vocals over the first half of the album feels like a bittersweet farewell present. As much as it reflects just how much Hoppus’ verses are at odds, it finds Delonge mixing in some of his strangest lyrics with Blink-182 such as in “Snake Charmer” where he tries to find ways to dive into angst while writing a song about the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. Meanwhile Hoppus, despite finding interests in more morbid subjects, was the one who recalled the previous hit “I Miss You” when he incorporated horror imagery in “Natives” with a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” reference in the chorus. Even then, him saying “We’ll have the time of our lives although we’re dying inside” could be read either as a man with severe depression, or somebody realizing how pointless it was to reunite the band. Add in that there's another song called "Heart's All Gone," and there's this vindictive sense of a break-up that could be about love, or it could just be that Hoppus REALLY hates Delonge.
That’s especially true when looking at “Up All Night” and “After Midnight,” which aim for something more nostalgic, of a time when life was more innocent. “Kaleidoscope” was their fastest song to date, recalling The Descendents. There was an intentional effort to make a Blink-182 record that had that old charm, but it rarely showed up. There's clearly this underlying sense that while they influenced a new generation of pop-punk bands, their inability to relate to bands like NOFX anymore left them feeling insecure.
In some ways, it was their new fusion that worked better. While “Ghost on the Dance Floor” features Delonge’s dumber lines (“God invented chills”) its use of Angels & Airwaves ethereal sound worked so well. It was an ambient song about how a song reminds you of a deceased loved one. Say what you will about Delonge, but his songs had the more upbeat quality, with “Wishing Well” being one of the noteworthy standouts. It features the album’s catchiest chorus, even if the imagery finds Delonge “cut up by sharpened rocks.” The imagery was morbid, but there was this creative sense that Hoppus’ vision lacked. At best he had songs like “MH 4.18.2011” that found him commenting on what it was like to live in a war zone. The band was maturing, though not in one cohesive unit.
The record mattered, but not in the way that the previous five had. Every conversation I had was twinged with this sense of disappointment. The band had changed for the worse. Their sound was less accessible and there was a good reason they didn’t play new songs when I saw them at the Verizon Amphitheatre during that upcoming tour. Sure it was fun hearing all of the hits and the banter had its moments, but they clearly knew their best work was behind them. Even as I watched Barker do an epic drum solo while sustained on a rotating stage, it was spectacle of a band still trying to understand what made them like each other in the first place.
The record is fine. Listening to it again I noticed that their songwriting skills were still sharp and there’s enough charm to make it a memorable record. Sure, I don’t think of it as often as any one song on “Blink-182,” but I’m not sure if that’s just because my life has moved beyond them. To me “Neighborhoods” marked the end of an era. It was their first record I listened to and didn’t immediately feel that sensation. The talk was underwhelming even if it afforded me the overdue chance to see them live. I think as a farewell record it’s rather decent, especially with its imagery of a band dying.
The only issue is that they didn’t and I’m scared to know that anything beyond this exists. Much like Green Day, the 2010s was a decade when influential pop-punk bands changed for the worst, though I still find a fondness for the “Uno!”, “Dos!”, “Tre!” albums more than everyone else. I still tap my toes to Blink-182 songs now and then, but this is a record that reminded me that things were over. There’s plenty to like, but it’s more fascinating of a hypothetical of where the band could’ve gone had they not fallen apart. Would they still be good or unbearably depressing? It’s hard to know, but I don’t think Matt Skiba holds any of the answers.
For next week, I’m planning to take a bit of a detour into the world of musical theater as I explore Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most insane show ever: Starlight Express.
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