Jul 18 2006
3:18pm
Sometimes I go through these periods where I'll pick a subcategory in my MP3 collection and just play the hell out of it, finding songs that I might not have noticed before (yes, my collection is that big). Lately I've been working my way through the Blink 182 discography.
Most of their albums, especially the earlier garage band stuff, has no appeal to me. It's just too punk for my tastes. Their later albums, however, like Enema of the State and their self titled album, are simply excellent. Good lyrics, great rhythm, and an excellent grasp of melody and harmony.
The other day I was at Wal-Mart with Mom, and noticed a Blink 182 greatest hits album. I was pointing out a couple songs for Mom, and she mentioned that Blink had broken up. I hadn't heard anything about this, but it didn't surprise me much. She mentioned some quote by Tom DeLonge that they've reached a different time of their lives.
This immediately made me think of my previous post. Blink is another band that, like Green Day, has had a drastic change in their sound as they've gotten older. All three are married with kids (Travis married twice, with three children). My immediate reaction to this was thinking that they must just have reached a point where music was not the center of their lives. While I can respect that, at the same time I'm left thinking "If Green Day can work their family lives into this, why can't Blink?"
After doing some google searching, and reading a very in-depth Wikipedia article, I found out they broke up over a year ago. Kinda surprised I hadn't heard this before... There doesn't seem to be any concrete information from the band itself, but it seems that Mark felt alienated when Tom started up a side project with Travis. It finally culminated at 2005's Tsunami Relief charity performance, when the band dissolved just a few hours before they were set to go on.
Frankly, to find out this was all just some spat between the band members leaves me with much less respect for them. These guys are older then me and had been playing together for over ten years. They can't work out their differences as friends? In an interview last May with Tom, he said he hasn't talked to any of his former band-mates in over a year. That's some pretty deep resentment...
Welcome to the music industry, where the average maturity level is "adolescent".
Technically the band lists themselves as being on indefinite hiatus. Plenty of other great bands have come back from worse break-ups then this. One wonders what kinds of changes to expect in their music after such a musical divergence. All three members have gone on to work on different projects with different bands.
3:18pm
Aging into maturity, part two
Part One
Sometimes I go through these periods where I'll pick a subcategory in my MP3 collection and just play the hell out of it, finding songs that I might not have noticed before (yes, my collection is that big). Lately I've been working my way through the Blink 182 discography.
Most of their albums, especially the earlier garage band stuff, has no appeal to me. It's just too punk for my tastes. Their later albums, however, like Enema of the State and their self titled album, are simply excellent. Good lyrics, great rhythm, and an excellent grasp of melody and harmony.
The other day I was at Wal-Mart with Mom, and noticed a Blink 182 greatest hits album. I was pointing out a couple songs for Mom, and she mentioned that Blink had broken up. I hadn't heard anything about this, but it didn't surprise me much. She mentioned some quote by Tom DeLonge that they've reached a different time of their lives.
This immediately made me think of my previous post. Blink is another band that, like Green Day, has had a drastic change in their sound as they've gotten older. All three are married with kids (Travis married twice, with three children). My immediate reaction to this was thinking that they must just have reached a point where music was not the center of their lives. While I can respect that, at the same time I'm left thinking "If Green Day can work their family lives into this, why can't Blink?"
After doing some google searching, and reading a very in-depth Wikipedia article, I found out they broke up over a year ago. Kinda surprised I hadn't heard this before... There doesn't seem to be any concrete information from the band itself, but it seems that Mark felt alienated when Tom started up a side project with Travis. It finally culminated at 2005's Tsunami Relief charity performance, when the band dissolved just a few hours before they were set to go on.
Frankly, to find out this was all just some spat between the band members leaves me with much less respect for them. These guys are older then me and had been playing together for over ten years. They can't work out their differences as friends? In an interview last May with Tom, he said he hasn't talked to any of his former band-mates in over a year. That's some pretty deep resentment...
Welcome to the music industry, where the average maturity level is "adolescent".
Technically the band lists themselves as being on indefinite hiatus. Plenty of other great bands have come back from worse break-ups then this. One wonders what kinds of changes to expect in their music after such a musical divergence. All three members have gone on to work on different projects with different bands.