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I grew up listening to a lot of punk, specifically late ‘90s, early 2000s pop punk. These days, I still listen to some punk, and some of that vintage stuff recently bled in. Spotify served me up a punk mix, and in the process brought me back into the world of early blink-182.
Specifically, the sound “Carousel” from the 1995 album Cheshire Cat popped on and well, I thought it was really good. In fact, it led to me reinvestigating the early blink-182 as a result. Sure, I had listened to Colleen Green’s song-by-song cover of Dude Ranch a couple years ago, but that was about it.
I was a big fan of blink-182 in junior high, because it was right up my alley. Enema of the State had come out. “What’s My Age Again?” was on MTV. Their juvenile humor was made for me. They were punk in a poppy way and I dug them. Then I grew up and lost any taste for that era of the band. It sounds too clean, and also the lyrics just such. They aren’t funny, and they have the emotional depth of teenagers well into their thirties.
Cheshire Cat opens with “Carousel,” and, man, I do dig that song. It’s got real punk energy. It flies at you. I will make a statement that is probably controversial, but I think Scott Raynor is a better drummer than Travis Barker. This also may be controversial, but I only really have patience for the Tom DeLonge songs. A lot of folks don’t like his vocal stylings, but they work better for me with this work-a-day punk sound of the early blink work. Mark Hoppus’ vocals don’t do anything for me. Eventually, when I was digging into the early stuff from the band I would just skip the Mark songs. His vocals don’t do anything for me.
You know what else doesn’t do much for me? The lyrics. The sophomoric humor isn’t as present – though it’s still there – but as a grown man listening to other grown men (they were in their early twenties in the Cheshire Cat era) sing these simplistic, reductive lyrics is an eye roller. It can be tricky enough when I am listening to a band fronted by an actual teenager. The songs have to sound really good to help me get over questionable lyrics, and blink-182 almost always delivers questionable lyrics.
So what did I take away from my trip back into the world of mid-‘90s blink-182? “Carousel” is a dope song. Colleen Green’s Dude Ranch album is interesting. The rest of this? I can leave it in the past.
