Blink-182 [ARCHIVED] Band • Page 753

Absolutely, agreed on all counts. I also always point to that record as a classic example of too many cooks in the kitchen. Way too many songwriters brought in when Alex and co. really never needed them. Those are both good songs, I'd also add "Heroes" to that list (co-written by Feldmann, coincidentally). But even "Heroes" really suffers from some lackluster vocal delivery. Just a ho-hum, phoned-in disappointment otherwise. Honestly, it's one of the most disappointing albums by a band I generally love that I can recall.

 

I blame co-writers less than the fact that they were on a major label and, I presume, trying really hard to get a radio hit. You can hear that pressure in the album, honestly. Personally though, I'm not gonna say that co-writers were the reason that album wasn't very good, because co-writes have worked fantastically for them on the other albums. I mean, Nothing Personal was basically the album they were going for with Dirty Work, and I'll always be a little bummed that album didn't take off commercially.

 

Exactly. As I hum it, St Jimmy makes a lot of sense.

 

Not that I have anything necessarily against co-writers, I just think that album saw them working with the wrong co-writers, if that makes sense. They got the worst possible toss-off Raditude-esque song Rivers Cuomo could come up with, for instance. Seriously, I'll never forgive them for putting that song on an album. I won't even say its name.

And I honestly think Nothing Personal is still closer to their earlier stuff than not. I feel like Future Hearts was them nailing the mainstream pop-rock sound they tried to hit on Dirty Work but failed miserably at. I also personally think Feldmann was the major difference in terms of the success.

 

Is "I feel like Dancin'" the Rivers song? That song is horrendous. Haha.

I love Nothing Personal. That album for me is the point where they went from a promising band to an excellent one. Future Hearts is my favorite of theirs though, so no argument on that.

It's such a shame to me that ATL never even had one song that took off the way other similar bands like Boys Like Girls and We the Kings did, but the guys seem more than happy with their career at this point. Hell, in his FH review Thomas compared ATL's discography to the consistency of a band like Less Than Jake, which made me really happy to see.

 

It's funny, you can easily tell in this thread who gravitates towards pop and who gravitates towards rock when listing their favorite songs on the record.

 

NO YOU SAID ITS NAME GAHHHHH. Unsurprised you were able to easily guess which song was the Rivers song though.

Yeah, for me I knew they were going to be something from the moment I heard Put Up Or Shut Up. I got to see them on tour at the Stone Pony in Jersey like the week after So Wrong, It's Right came out and it was insanely cool to watch them sort-of get big when "Dear Maria, Count Me In" got some play. But then after that nothing really stuck for them. I was surprised that they went major two albums later instead of on the next one (considering the moderate success of "Dear Maria, Count Me In") but I also really enjoyed Nothing Personal and was happy (at the time) that they didn't let their relative success get to their heads. Then Dirty Work happened and it was almost like the other shoe just took slightly longer to drop. Luckily they turned it around with Don't Panic.

And agreed re: Boys Like Girls and We The Kings. ATL is miles and miles above those two bands and deserved way more success. Although they did get it with Future Hearts debuting at #2 (which should have been #1 and I was really bitter about it).

 

I despised ATL for about 3 years until NP came out, been a fan ever since. NP was too fucking catchy NOT to like. I think it's my favorite by them

 

The sad thing is you know for a fact that ATL would have blown up way more if they came like 3 years earlier.

 

Yeah, I was mad about that too. Should never have happened.

I really like those first two BLG albums too, but yeah I'm a far bigger fan of ATL, and there's no reason something from Nothing Personal shouldn't have been on the radio along with "Love Drunk". And how does "Heaven Can Wait" go to pop radio while "Damned", for example, doesn't? Again, I say this as a fan of Smile Kid, but it's just perplexing to me when you look at the bands that had successful singles and then consider ATL wasn't one of them.

I kinda hated them before NP too even though I'd never heard them because I thought I was supposed to or something based on who their fans were. I was dumb.

 

I want them to play Kings Of The Weekend on Good Morning America tomorrow solely so Matt can do the scream in that song lol.

 

Probably true, but like I said in my last post -- I'm still confused as to how they didn't get a radio single in the same year that BLG and WTK did. Though now that I'm typing it, perhaps that's because both of those bands had already blown up a couple years earlier.

 

who are blg and wtk? This may be a dumb question

 

Boys Like Girls and We The Kings

 

Well, it happened, I got bored enough.

My method: I wrote down all of the words, then left Mark's standard, italicized all of Matt's, and bolded where they both sing prominently. Times where they both sing but you can almost not even hear one of them, I just gave to the other.
I excluded "na"s and "whoa"s and such. Here are my findings:

Of roughly 2,931 words sung by an individual singer, Mark sings 1708 and Matt sings 1223. This breaks down to about 58% Mark, 41% Matt.

Add in lines where both sing (there are 392 of them total), and you get 3323 total words, with Mark singing 2100 and Matt singing 1615. This breaks down to 63% Mark, 48% Matt (it doesn't add up to 100 because of overlap).

Some fun facts:

"Built This Pool" is the only track both don't sing on. Assuming that's Travis saying "Is that really it?" he gets four total words on the album. Unless he's doing little things I don't recognize.

I'm still not convinced that's Matt singing "did she go, did she go" on "No Future." There are a few times where Mark is overlapped with himself or Matt is overlapped with himself, so that argument is out, but it really doesn't sound like Matt to me. Sounds like it could be, but he sounds way flatter than usual. I gave it to him anyway.

Besides "Built This Pool," Matt sings the least on "Cynical" where he has only two solo lines that get repeated. After that it's "California". He only sings the words "California," "suburbia," the last chorus, and his only solo lines are "living in the perfect weather/spending time inside together." He has three unique solo lines on "Home is Such a Lonely Place," 7 unique solo lines on "Teenage Satellites," and 8 solo lines on "Sober."

If you don't count repeated lines, Mark sings solo the least on "The Only Thing That Matters," where he has a grand total of 5 solo lines (9 lines total, but the other 4 are shared). On "Los Angeles" he has seven solo lines, only two of which aren't repeated several times or an echo of something Matt sang. He has 9 unique lines each on "She's Out of Her Mind," "Teenage Satellites," and "San Diego."

The most even split is "Left Alone." Mark and Matt each sing 22 lines solo, with 12 shared.

All of the above could be a little off, especially because I'm not actually sure Matt sings on Brohemiam Rhapsody; it could just be Mark layered. I'm pretty sure I hear Matt, but I don't want to listen to it over and over to find out.

 

thanks! Never heard of that last band.

 

Holy shit hahaha

 

Really?

 

Yep. What are some of their big songs?

 

Secret Valentine, Check Yes Juliet, Heaven Can Wait. I'd bet you heard at least those first two sometime in 2007.

 

Even fucking Forever the Sickest Kids had a song on Top 40 radio in 2008. That annoys me so much.

 

@crackedthesky is doing god's work

 

Who knew God's work was having no life and too much time on my hands, lol.

 

maybe, haha, not ringing a bell though. I'll check them out tonight.

 

Also "Skyway Avenue." That was their big breakout single. Their whole first album has some decent pop-rock tunes but I'm personally not a fan of anything they did after that.