For many of you out there, this article will be of little immediate interest. But, I can assure you that by the time the last word falls off the tip of your brain you’ll be a convert, or appreciative at the very least. Not of me for pointing out the obvious, but rather of a band that is inconspicuously one of the most important functioning pieces of the history of new music. That band is Blink-182.
Relax, don’t go sounding the alarms just yet. Whether or not you were ever a fan of their music is irrelevant, because what we have here is a band that by virtue of their own “stupidity” has brought into existence a perpetually nourishing relationship with their fans that is unlike anything the rock & roll world has ever seen before.
In their prime, Blink was about embodying the spirit of the teenage experience. They were the musical counterpoint to teen angst, punk rock puppy love, and pop rebellion. For an entire generation of kids, their music put into words all those feelings that we tend to arrive at as we come crashing into life for the first time one summer when were 15.
The thing about Blink was their antics and that’s what drew the kids in. But it was their ability to pin point that feeling of being a recklessly free teenager bobbing along in the middle of a shit storm of hormones and happiness that really made us connect. They stayed long enough to define the pop punk sound, and then they broke up.
In retrospect I think it happened at exactly the right time, in a moment when the fans had hit that age that comes right after bewildering discovery and right before bewildering disappointment. I think they call it “growing up.” But, without even knowing it, the dynamic of the relationship that formed between this band and their fans honestly mirrored the nature of teenage life. The music became the soundtrack to their youth, and that it made it possible for them to grow together over time. And that’s the thing about rock & roll music, it’s a social entity- one that both reflects life and simultaneously dictates it.
So, now in 2011 as fans eagerly await the release of a new Blink record, it is this strange and wonderful relationship that is going to make it possible for Blink to step outside the boundaries of their previous existence, and avoid the musical equivalent of typecasting themselves as that same band that began their career telling dick jokes and
running around bare-assed wearing nothing but tube socks and converse sneakers.
Never before have we seen a musical relationship of this nature and that is the key component to making this sort of a reinstatement possible for a band at this point in their career. The timing is just right, and it’s a weird thing but like old friends- the kind you can pick up with exactly where you left off no matter what’s happened in between- both the
band and the fans seem ready and willing to go all in to let this thing breathe again.
Generally after a band breaks up what people want is a nostalgia act, something to provide a gateway back into their memories of that time. In this case, fans don’t expect the same Blink they connected with when they were 15 because they know they can’t connect with them in the same way anymore. These are not stupid people, even the
diehards don’t want to listen to a 35-year-old man sing about fucking pirates and how he’ll never talk to you again unless your mom will touch his cock. But, maybe that’s a testament to the outlook of Blink fans and to this generation in general because while we will always want to hear the classics, we’re not looking to recover a connection with a time already past, what we want now is to connect with this band on a whole new level.
When Blink announced that they were getting back together the first thing they did was go on tour. They didn’t jump right into making another record because they recognized the necessity in going out on the road and learning how to play as a unit again. Being in a rock & roll band is about finding and forging an honest connection with both the music and with the people who experience it. Blink hadn’t been a functioning unit for 5 years by the time they got back together, so releasing a record right out of the gate wouldn’t have been anything real. The fact that this band was asked to headline the 2010 Reading & Leeds Festivals in the UK and that they made a conscious decision to bring their separate experiences to the table, get their feet wet by reconnecting with the fans and figuring out how to make it work again before they ever recorded a single note, says two things; the first is that this band has grown just as much as the fans have and the second is that I’m not the only one who can see that rock & roll is on the cusp of
discovering something spectacular in Blink-182.
I think that in the beginning there were a lot of people who didn’t want to take Blink seriously as a rock band but then didn’t some skinny, old, English guy say, “you can’t always get what you want.” The crux of rock & roll music is the teenage generation and that’s what makes the Blink story such an incredible one. Prior to this moment in time,
there has never been another rock & roll band whose entire existence has been so literally tangled with the lives of their fans. This is a social fucking phenomenon we’re talking about here, a true example of art imitating life and life imitating art. I mean the relationship between this band and their fans is made of something completely honest,
and when do we as human beings feel more honestly than in our youths? This band is about to do something that no other band before it has done for a particular genre of music; defined it, disappeared, and then been in a position to do it all over again.
Photo courtesy of: Liverpool Mag
Text by Juliette Jagger of Rock Roll & Write
Relax, don’t go sounding the alarms just yet. Whether or not you were ever a fan of their music is irrelevant, because what we have here is a band that by virtue of their own “stupidity” has brought into existence a perpetually nourishing relationship with their fans that is unlike anything the rock & roll world has ever seen before.
In their prime, Blink was about embodying the spirit of the teenage experience. They were the musical counterpoint to teen angst, punk rock puppy love, and pop rebellion. For an entire generation of kids, their music put into words all those feelings that we tend to arrive at as we come crashing into life for the first time one summer when were 15.
The thing about Blink was their antics and that’s what drew the kids in. But it was their ability to pin point that feeling of being a recklessly free teenager bobbing along in the middle of a shit storm of hormones and happiness that really made us connect. They stayed long enough to define the pop punk sound, and then they broke up.
In retrospect I think it happened at exactly the right time, in a moment when the fans had hit that age that comes right after bewildering discovery and right before bewildering disappointment. I think they call it “growing up.” But, without even knowing it, the dynamic of the relationship that formed between this band and their fans honestly mirrored the nature of teenage life. The music became the soundtrack to their youth, and that it made it possible for them to grow together over time. And that’s the thing about rock & roll music, it’s a social entity- one that both reflects life and simultaneously dictates it.
So, now in 2011 as fans eagerly await the release of a new Blink record, it is this strange and wonderful relationship that is going to make it possible for Blink to step outside the boundaries of their previous existence, and avoid the musical equivalent of typecasting themselves as that same band that began their career telling dick jokes and
running around bare-assed wearing nothing but tube socks and converse sneakers.
Never before have we seen a musical relationship of this nature and that is the key component to making this sort of a reinstatement possible for a band at this point in their career. The timing is just right, and it’s a weird thing but like old friends- the kind you can pick up with exactly where you left off no matter what’s happened in between- both the
band and the fans seem ready and willing to go all in to let this thing breathe again.
Generally after a band breaks up what people want is a nostalgia act, something to provide a gateway back into their memories of that time. In this case, fans don’t expect the same Blink they connected with when they were 15 because they know they can’t connect with them in the same way anymore. These are not stupid people, even the
diehards don’t want to listen to a 35-year-old man sing about fucking pirates and how he’ll never talk to you again unless your mom will touch his cock. But, maybe that’s a testament to the outlook of Blink fans and to this generation in general because while we will always want to hear the classics, we’re not looking to recover a connection with a time already past, what we want now is to connect with this band on a whole new level.
When Blink announced that they were getting back together the first thing they did was go on tour. They didn’t jump right into making another record because they recognized the necessity in going out on the road and learning how to play as a unit again. Being in a rock & roll band is about finding and forging an honest connection with both the music and with the people who experience it. Blink hadn’t been a functioning unit for 5 years by the time they got back together, so releasing a record right out of the gate wouldn’t have been anything real. The fact that this band was asked to headline the 2010 Reading & Leeds Festivals in the UK and that they made a conscious decision to bring their separate experiences to the table, get their feet wet by reconnecting with the fans and figuring out how to make it work again before they ever recorded a single note, says two things; the first is that this band has grown just as much as the fans have and the second is that I’m not the only one who can see that rock & roll is on the cusp of
discovering something spectacular in Blink-182.
I think that in the beginning there were a lot of people who didn’t want to take Blink seriously as a rock band but then didn’t some skinny, old, English guy say, “you can’t always get what you want.” The crux of rock & roll music is the teenage generation and that’s what makes the Blink story such an incredible one. Prior to this moment in time,
there has never been another rock & roll band whose entire existence has been so literally tangled with the lives of their fans. This is a social fucking phenomenon we’re talking about here, a true example of art imitating life and life imitating art. I mean the relationship between this band and their fans is made of something completely honest,
and when do we as human beings feel more honestly than in our youths? This band is about to do something that no other band before it has done for a particular genre of music; defined it, disappeared, and then been in a position to do it all over again.
Photo courtesy of: Liverpool Mag
Text by Juliette Jagger of Rock Roll & Write
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