Sober - blink-182
This feature originally ran in February 2015. Were revisiting it in anticipation of Blink-182s upcoming album, California.
What is it about 20-somethings? asks the title of a New York Times Magazine article published in 2010. The subtext to that question is another question: Why are people in their 20s finding it so hard to grow up? The answers range from changing social mores to an uncertain job market, but maybe its even simpler than that. Maybe a new generation of so-called millennials is finally starting to understand a line they heard in a song back in 1999: Nobody likes you when youre 23.
If youre a sociologist searching for Ground Zero that time when the 20s shifted from a life stage of emerging adulthood to one of prolonged adolescence an album called Enema of the State isnt the worst place to start. Gleefully irreverent and self-consciously juvenile, that recordwas most peoples introduction to Blink-182, a Southern Californian pop-punk band whose members refused to act their own age. At the prime of their career, Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker who replaced original drummer Scott Raynor in 1998 were twentysomethings stuck in a strange dream of high school that never quite ended. Its a story thats all too familiar these days and one that most people would even find sort of pathetic. But Blink beat the odds and found a way to make it cool, largely by appealing to a younger generation of music fans who simply didnt know any better. Talk to those fans today, and theyll recall with misty eyes theroller rink they were at when they first heard Whats My Age Again? or the hours they spent plunking outthe opening riff of Dammit on guitar.
The boys of Blink-182 never seemed to care much about their place in music history, their minds preoccupied with botched relationships and brainstorming sexual puns for their next album title. But they found one anyway. Nearly two decades on, many of Blinks biggest fans are stumbling into their own versions of adulthood and realizing the appeal of extended adolescence. Perhaps its fitting that, at the same time, Blink is struggling to move forward and might even be over as a band. Last week, Hoppus and Barker abruptly announced that they were parting ways with DeLonge, and a messy public battle ensued. It justified suspicions that 2011s Neighborhoods was a halfhearted comeback and that the band had truly run its course years ago when they broke up the first time in 2005. Its hard growing up; its even harder to admit it when youre finally there.
But before music history finally turns the page on Blink-182, weve decided to compile the very best songs from the bands 20-plus-year career. They might make you cringe, or they might make you cry, but in any case, theyll take you back to a time when growing up felt more like an option than a rite of passage.
Collin BrennanAssociate Editor
Source: http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/06/blink-182s-top-10-songs/
