blink-182 “Greatest Hits” Geffen
Records
Someone neglected to tell blink-182 that its 15 minutes of fame
ended about four years ago.
The San Diego band, which recently went on hiatus (conveniently
in time for its newest release), began its career with raunchy
jokes and teen angst. Although never notably musically talented,
the band drew a legion of fans with its hilarious antics on- and
off-stage, which, combined with heartfelt, honest lyrics, helped
blink-182 lead the pop-punk revolution of the late 1990s.
“Greatest Hits” starts out promising, but ends up a
disappointment, mostly because it is not an accurate portrait of
what drew people to blink-182 in the first place. In fact, it shows
the desperate attempt of a band attempting to remove itself from a
genre it helped create.
There are only two songs each from the band’s early albums
“Cheshire Cat” and “Dude Ranch,” which are
arguably the band’s best releases. Even the multi-platinum
“Enema of the State” lends only three tracks to
“Greatest Hits.” All the radio singles are on the disc,
but blink-182 neglects to include many of the album tracks that
fans had on repeat for hours.
Instead, the band chose to include four songs from its
self-titled album ““ the one which had fans questioning,
“Are you sure this is blink-182?” On the
“blink-182″ album, the band replaced power chords and
Travis Barker’s energetic drumming with distorted guitar
effects and drum loops, attempting to show maturity but instead
turning blink into a band experiencing a mid-life crisis. Some of
the songs were good, but the older perspective of the lyrics lacked
the teenage whining that blink fans love. As catchy as the pop-punk
genre is, it does not leave very much room for artistic growth, so
it was inevitable that blink’s attempts to change its style
would alienate longtime fans along the way.
As with any greatest-hits album, the hook, line and sinker lies
in the unreleased tracks. Even though “Not Now” is
catchy, it is of “new blink” lyrically and
production-wise, making it entirely forgettable. “Another
Girl Another Planet” was not even written by the band; it is
a cover of the original by The Only Ones. This left-over from the
short-lived “Meet The Barkers” television show was
probably tacked on to fill space.
In an interview before the blink break-up, bassist Mark Hoppus
mentioned that blink was in the process of writing songs for a new
album, leaving one wondering where these songs went.
Furthermore, the bathroom humor ““ arguably the most
appealing aspect of the band ““ is notably absent from this
record. Even early songs such as “Carousel” and
“Dammit” are among the cleaner songs from that period.
Don’t forget, this is the band that gained worldwide
popularity for running naked in its music videos and joking about
masturbation and incest.
“Greatest Hits” keeps trying to push on old fans a
new blink they should not have to accept. Maybe blink is growing
up, but when a band forgets why its fans loved it in the first
place, as is obviously the case with blink-182, the results are
catastrophic.
““ Michelle Castillo