Blink-182 [ARCHIVED] Band • Page 946

great article. loved the write up on i miss you particularrly.

now i want to do a top 10 because there hasn't been nearly enough rankings round these parts recently:

10. Not Now
9. Man Overboard
8. I Miss You
7. Roller Coaster
6. Wendy Clear
5. Apple Shampoo
4. Dammit
3. Josie
2. What's My Age Again?
1. Feeling This

 

Just relistened to Neighborhoods....better then I remember it really, but I like California a speck more.

 

Natives, Up All Night and After Midnight are better than anything on California I'd say. That's just off the stop of my head, need to revisit as I'm sure there are others. The album was so much more interesting musically/lyrically. California feels so....forced and I dunno bland?

Didn't he work with a producer on his last two albums?

I agree with this. Wish they'd had someone there to help guide them a bit, for sure. But still think the album stands much stronger than what I'd consider an uninteresting album overall that is California..but yeah do wish the album had a bit more collaboration it's pretty clear it was very scattered.

 

Neighborhoods feels so disjointed and unfinished. I mean, it's basically just an album that's pieced together, rather than fleshed out songs. It feels way more bland to me than anything else in their discography, even DED. California isn't their best album by any means, but at least it has some character to it, some energy, and direction.

 

Neighborhoods to me seems like a really polished demo album and the band is waiting to go into the studio to work on it some more and record the master tracks.

 

I genuinely believe the opinion of Neighborhoods would be far better if it sounded EXACTLY the same but no one knew they recorded separately

 

I have a vague memory of that being revealed after release though? But I could be wrong.

 

I don't know... even if they recorded it all together, and we got Neighborhoods the way it is, I still would think the majority of the songs are meh and underdeveloped, especially as a follow-up to Untitled. To me, it sounds very uninspired.

 

If only blink never broke up and we got a true follow up to the Untitled album now that would have been something!

 

I agree. And don't say "We would have gotten We Don't Need To Whisper" ... haha.

 

I do think the album feels unfocused and doesn't feel connected. But again, I think the songs themselves are just better. I don't even think California sounds like blink-182, it's more +44 than anything and has a fan of the band I think I've finished the album start to finish....maybe twice. I always lose interest.

I feel like Tom was at least keeping shit interesting. Neighborhoods has flaws but still way more listenable I think, on a track-by-track basis or as a whole.

But again, I know I'm in the minority here.

 

At least California has some fun classic-Blink sounding stuff, like "Bored To Death", "She's Out of Her Mind", "The Only Thing That Matters", "Rabbit Hole", etc. There's some great shit on California, and some decent shit on Neighborhoods. The duds on Neighborhoods outweighs the duds on California though, in my opinion. The title track "California" for instance... Garbage, haha.

 

Yes they did. And I remember everybody loving the album waaaay more when it initially came out and they didn't know that (example: it got a 9/10 on absolutepunk's review)

 

The hype was so high for that album at the time that of course everyone was going to love it initially. I don't think the lack of staying power had anything to do with finding out that they recorded in separate places. I think that just helped explain to us maybe why we weren't digging it as much as we wanted to, after the initial hype lowered.

 

I like Neighborhoods a lot outside of This Is Home, Love Is Dangerous and Snakecharmer. The funnier thing to me is when DED came out I saw a lot of people instantly say it was better cause they recorded together, and to me it sounds even further from blink and closer to their respective side projects. So I think their musical neighborhoods were getting even further apart lol.

 

California is a better record partially because it's a much safer record. I don't like "Kings of the Weekend", and "The Only Thing That Matters" is meh to me, but they aren't the plodding, unfocused mess of something like "Kaleidoscope" or "Love is Dangerous". California also sounds a whole lot better, just sonically and in mix and production. I've cooled a lot on the album as a whole and started to think I've been a bit too harsh on Neighborhoods but still feel California has just much better energy. If I were to compile my favorite blink tracks, "After Midnight" is by far the only Neighborhoods cut that would maybe make it. California has maybe 5-7 cuts I really, really like. Neighborhoods is a mediocre album that has like, songs with interesting moments and ideas, while California is an average retread with some really good songs.

Still, while I like a regression into simple pop punk stuff with Matt Skiba a lot more than post-breakup Tom's attempts at stadium rock, I would love for them to get weirder and darker on the next output with Matt.

 

I thought "When I Was Young" was the best Blink song they'd released since getting back together. I still think I'd prefer that track than anything off of Neighborhoods. The first 3 tracks on DED are pretty great. Very Tom heavy, but feel pretty natural and thought out. "Boxing Day" is just meh, and doesn't really fit with anything they've done. "Pretty Little Girl" is totally a leftover AVA track.

 

So 91x in San Diego announced blink is headlining their Christmas show on December 11th... with their current tour wrapping up next Friday, and that Xmas show being in San Diego... could it mean the return of....? No no no... I'll stop.

 

If it does mean "you know who" returns for the show, hopefully it's only because Matt is with Alkaline Trio working on their next album, and that's it.

 

My opinion has been the same since my first listen. My "meh" feeling on it actually popped up in my Facebook memories the other day. I posted that I was excited to listen to it. I even tried to pretend listening to it in my car be headphones would make me like it more. Then the next day I knew. I knew I didn't like it.

 

I feel like Tom would have been included in the show announcement if he was performing. Gotta be Matt.

 

I remember reading around the time of the release of that album, Mark and Travis weren't too happy that some of the song ideas they had down for the next album were used in We Don't Need To Whisper but I definitely agree with you that album is in no way what we would have got if all three members had been involved.

Thinking about another album with them + Jerry Finn from that era of blink is literally melting my brain haha.

 

Imagine if Tom hadn't turned nuts back then. There would have been a 2005, 2007, 2010 (going to 3 year cycles now because why not?), 2013, and 2016 album.

 

I don't know I mean people would have still said oh Snake Charmer is a Tom song and MH is pure Mark. I just don't think the album aged well. I don't think the guys recording the majority of the songs seperately would have changed the opinion. The guys were pretty open that they were recording seperately during the wait for the album to actually come out.

I think the only major news since the album came out was that Tom didn't even listen to the master trackings of the album.