Albums I Loved In High School: Blink 182 & 'Enema Of The State'
"Nobody likes you when you're 23" - Blink 182
The music we listen to between ages 13-18 literally imprints on our brains. Anything you listen to outside of that window? You might eventually like it more, but it won’t make an impression like the stuff you jammed from middle school to high school.
I have no idea if that’s true, but I read that they did studies that concluded something like that once (Cracked article?) and it feels true. I can feel it in the way lyrics and guitar parts come flooding back into my memory, the way I’ll pound out drum fills with my thumbs without consciously intending to do so while hearing something I haven’t thought about for two decades.
So here’s the first in a series revisiting some records I liked in high school. Last week was NOFX, and I figure anyone with even a cursory knowledge of what I was like in high school is gonna be asking when are you gonna do Blink 182 so we’re doing Blink 182. Don’t worry, I will eventually re-listen to something embarrassing, like Relient K or Slick Shoes.
Dumpweed
The warm-up/soundcheck song for any band, depending on the drummer’s energy level. My band in high school added this to so many birthday party setlists, the kind of sets where we’d have to play for an hour? “Dumpweed” will be three minutes of that hour, as will Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and the Oneders’ “That Thing You Do.” The intro riff is genuinely eye-popping creative. The band couldn’t be bothered to play any more chords after that third one, though. Travis’s drumming here is maybe the best illustration of why this band is nothing without him.
One time in high school, my mom heard this song and asked me, “you know you can’t train girls, right, you know you don’t talk about women that way?” The amount of years my Blink 182 fandom has probably taken off of my parents’ lives, dudes.
Don’t Leave Me
Blink 182 loves to give Mark the second song to sing, put the song in the key of A, B, or E, and have it be a perfectly serviceable song that everyone agrees is very far from the best on the record. These songs always stick out for one funny thing—the juvenile expectations of a girlfriend on “Josie,” Mark claiming “Don’t Leave Me” is “about [his] herpes” on the live album, the weird Josie callback to “Online Songs” without connecting it in any way to “Josie.” That said, “do you like Tom or Mark songs better” is forever an open-ended question, at least for me.
Aliens Exist
Tom knew back in 1999 and all of you were too busy making fun of his lip ring and sideways hat and Dickies and silly one-pickup signature guitar to realize. Still a massive missed opportunity, not putting this song over the end credits of Nope.
Going Away To College
Whoa whoa whoa, who put all this color and texture in the guitar chords? Is it my birthday, or did some play a sixth?
What’s My Age Again?
On The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show, Tom kicks this song off by saying “it’s really hard to play.” It kind of is! Do we think Tom knows what hybrid picking is?
Dysentery Gary
Another genuinely creative intro riff. Some good and unexpected dynamic changes in this song. It’s pretty awful, lyrically, like if you really listen to the lyrics, you take eight steps backward on the path to Enlightenment. THAT SAID—easily the funniest track on the record. Which is, again, a horrifying statement if you listen to the lyrics.
Adam’s Song
Fine enough song, but the best thing about not being a teenager anymore or having the Trump presidency happen is you no longer have to pretend it’s moving or serious.
All The Small Things
Maybe Blink’s worst song ever, yeah I said it.
The Party Song
MAYBE BLINK’S BEST SONG EVER, YEAH I SAID IT. Incredibly stupid, singing it is kind of a party trick, another remarkably chauvinist set of lyrics, but—idk, it makes me wanna go to a party. Or what 15-year-old me figured a college party would be, which was something like a Sum 41 or Chon video: a pool, a few bands, the homies, some women in bikinis, and, well, I was too into Youth Group to ever imagine farther than that.
Mutt
A really musically interesting song for being so simple. The three of them can really make interesting stuff happen within a pop framework if they actually try. The thing about music, though, is it’s pretty easy to run out of stuff to say on an instrument if you don’t really know it. They’re far from the only band to reach this roadblock, but some of Tom’s middle period guitar is the most reaching I can think of.
Wendy Clear
Feels a touch like filler, but it’s not so bad, as the chorus says. Like “Don’t Leave Me,” it’s not that this song is bad, because it’s not. It’s just the most Key of C song I can think of, and the key of C is the blandest key.
Anthem
Ahhhhh this song RULES. That cool groove at the beginning, then doubling the tempo (or whatever), the fact that this is called “Anthem” but there’s not really anything catchy to yell at the top of your lungs, the prechorus bass line that I thought was the sickest shit I’d ever heard until I saw Mark play it on a livestream and realized it’s as simple as everything else he does (but nevertheless still sick), the fact that this song wasn’t played live on The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show or at the Take Off Your Pants And Jacket tour show that I went to but the lead track off their next album was called “Anthem Part II” and had a bigger push to be a single but this song still never really got its due, the shoutout they give me in verse 2 (it’s true, I passed out drunk at Tom’s house in 1995 and they wrote on my face with lipstick), the fact that it might be Exhibit A in the “writing in the key of B is cool” argument, and the fact that the lyrics feel half-assed and like the last thing they wrote but the song nevertheless still rips.
Look, what do you want me to say? Can you explain why you like anything about Blink 182? You can’t, not without sounding kinda stupid. There’s no non-embarrassing answer to the question “what do you think of Blink 182?” If you like them, you have juvenile taste. If you don’t like them, you’re a stuffy prude. If you’ve never heard of them, you’re either my five-year-old child or my grandparents.
What Scratches This Itch For Me Today:
Nostalgia is embarrassing, because do you really like music or were you just happier when you were 16? One answer is depressing. The point of looking back at records I liked in high school is to see where I am today, too.
There are some good poppy bands out there. There was a stretch when, like, All Time Low and Cartel ruled the scene, and that was a dark time. Honestly, what gives me the same feeling as Blink now is Chon, specifically their Homey record. There’s an ineffable Southern California skater goof to that record that captures what I always liked about Blink 182. It’s fast, energetic music that makes you feel like the sun doesn’t have to go down until later, that whatever you or anyone else is worried about probably isn’t all that serious (going away to college can’t be worse than alien probes, right?). One of these days we’ll look at a San Diego screamo band I still love, but for me, the San Diego Sound is Blink 182 → Chon. Hey, I’ve eaten fish tacos in Old Town, kayaked in the Pacific, contemplated moving there every Chicago April.
Verdict: I still like it. A lot.
There are still times when I jam this record and poppy outings like it from around the same time. Not often, but some. Post-Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, I think I’ve listened to anything from Blink exactly once. That said, I get a big stupid shit-eating grin on my face whenever this record comes on. It’s so fun!
It also came out when I was in 6th grade, and Brendan and I bought it and Licensed To Ill by the Beastie Boys at the same time at Sam Goody, and that’s the domino that got us to Lazy & Entitled. I can’t believe I went this whole blog without telling the story of my dad taking Brendan and I to see Blink, New Found Glory, Midtown, and Mest at Starwood Amphitheater in Nashville, TN in 2001 (pre-9/11). Ask me about it sometime. Blink came out with the word FUCK in 10-foot-tall flaming letters and played “Happy Holidays You Bastard” three times in a row.
My dad never even considered making us 13-year-olds leave, and that’s called Good Parenting.
Are you coming to the house show later?
Sorry you got an email,
Chris