Blink and you'll miss it

Album: Blink-182
Artist: Blink-182
Label: Geffen
Release date: 18 November, 2003
Peak chart position/sales: (AUS) #7, 2x Platinum (CAN) #1, 2x Platinum (US) #3, Platinum (UK) #22, Platinum.

RATING: 2.5/5 stars

You should know that I have just spent the entire week with a headcold that was quite successful in its attempts to be debilitating. Therefore I was tired and rather bored this morning when I realised that I still hadn't listened to the Blink-182 album a friend had lent me some weeks ago. I should probably add to this realisation the fact that I have never listened to any Blink-182, despite growing up in their hey-day, and can in fact only recall their song "Shut Up", which I seem to remember finding hilarious as a youngster. For old times sake, I YouTubed it this morning at the breakfast table...and realised that I must have previously listened to the "clean" version, hurriedly hitting the pause button and coughing loudly over the barrage of obscenity in the first verse. Note to self: do not listen to contemporary punk at breakfast table with entire family present.

Anyway, after locating my headphones, I decided that Blink would be the victim subject of my next review, pressed Play, and picked up my knitting again (I also knit when I'm bored. And the idea of knitting while listening to punk appealed to my sense of humour. Moving on...).

I was expecting to have to grit my teeth through a whole lot of heavily stupid music that I would loathe with every inch of my Sex Pistols and Blondie-respecting musical taste, but found instead that I was able to giggle quite amiably throughout the whole album. For a start, the vocals sounded to me like a very demented Adam Young of Owl City (and while I'm here, LADIES! Please stop indicating to Adam Young that it is sexy to sound like Kermit the frog. It's just...weird. And other guys might start trying it.), and the lyrics didn't do much to redeem the singer. I know punk is supposed to be blatant, raw, in your face...but when you're just singing about missing a girl, with a few references to death, violence, morgues and inner turmoil thrown in just to show that you're all hardcore and punk and worthy of your piercings, it's a little bit funny. Add to that the fact that you scream slightly like Kermit the frog and it's definitely hilarious in parts.

Musically though, I was pleasantly surprised to find that each song had quite lovely little hooks and riffs that, despite the chaotic musical anarchy that is mandatory of punk, held the song together just enough to provide a enjoyable and definitely radio-friendly tune. Clever. They use vocal harmonies, too! Even if they are often particularly hideously sung and almost offensively simple. But punk was never meant to be pretty and though Blink hovers ever-so-close to the pop genre a lot of the time, they certainly achieve that messy, "to hell with you all" punk vibe that has no doubt won them many fans.

Probably the greatest redeeming factor of Blink-182 is the experimental nature that the band incorporate into many of the tracks, most notably the hypnotically minimalist instrumental "The Fallen Interlude" which marks the more-or-less halfway mark of the album. Similarly, the beginning of "Violence" includes a stop-start, unpredictable intro before bursting into Blink's more conventional pop-punk sound. The album also has remarkably good flow, pacing the mood carefully and running much like a concept album of sorts, with each track carrying into the next and few, if any, abrupt stops.

But then the album ends and you realise it was all...just...relationship problems. Unless I'm very much mistaken and punk has suddenly become cryptic and these are all allegories for political situations, Blink-182 has none of the kick-balls "let's all overthrow the government" attitude of original punk...in fact, it just seems to consist entirely of romantic songs that condemn "romantic" in their very musical style and morbid references. Maybe some people are into that.

But I'm off to listen to The Sex Pistols.