So
I was at this "sorta' party", and the thing with "sorta'
parties" is they're always haunted by kids who get sorta' intoxicated,
listen to sorta' rockin' music, and are all sorta' nice and sorta'
fun to hang out with, and after a sorta' party you only want to sorta'
slit your wrists, so it's sorta' cool. So like I said, I'm at this
sorta' party, and I'm having a sorta' good time, doing a subtle combination
of clock-watching and avoiding everyone by way of mingling with anyone,
and then it came to me like a vision, a mirage of an oasis in a desert
of "oh, uh, no, I never really got, uh…INTO Three Mile Pilot,
I guess I'm just not really, uh…yeah…Nice beret, though"
type conversations: a CD copy of 1999's "Enema Of The State"
from Blink-182.
I
ask the hostess, a dear friend of mine, a gal who's (for better or
worse) more likely to listen to the likes of Tortoise, or Simon &
Garfunkel than disposable teen-crud like Blink-182, "Is this
yours?" to which she uncomfortably replies "Oh, well, that
was at the bottom of a box that was marked 'mine' when we moved in…I
mean, it could be construed as mine, I guess, but I like to think
of the "Enema Of The State" CD as a virginal birth, ascending
from the ethereal plane with no earthbound destination…See, I
mean, though it is mine, I'm not really me, and we're actually in
an alternate dimension right now, so everything that is, isn't, so
who's to say what's mine, right? Yeah, okay, so the CD's mine, what?"
"Oh, well…Can I have it?" A look of confusion passes
over her face which changes quickly to one of relief as she sees her
shining opportunity to unload this obvious burden of uncool off unto
some new hapless shill (Hapless Shill, speaking, how-dee-doo?) "Uh,
sure…" she speaks with a hint of residue confusion to her
voice. Confusion turns to terror all too quickly, though, as one of
the Sorta's speaks out from the rabble with just the faintest hint
of sarcasm in their voice; "Hey, you should throw that on!"
A few other Sorta's assert the first one. "Really, should I?"
I say, as if my thumb's on the proverbial plunger, just about to shoot
up my under-aged girlfriend for the first time. "Yeah, throw
it on!"
And so I do, and the kvetch gates of Sorta' did open wide…
"Oh, this is SOOO bad!" "Gawd, his voice is so annoying!"
"Oh, man, turn this off!" "Etcetera, etcetera"
"Yeah, totally etcetera!" (ßI live in Southern California,
so fuck you!). Geez, all this over pop music! And finally; "Man,
what do these guys have to be so angry about?" Oy vey, lissen,
there's nothing even remotely angry about anything on "Enema
Of The State". Kee-rhist, you'd be hard pressed to call the most
revved up track on this disk even remotely angsty, but before I get
too deep into dissecting the aural delights this masterpiece has locked
away in its' mass-produced digital grooves, methinks I ought continue
with my story of this magical evening…
So eventually the rabble has their way again and Blink-182 is ousted
in favor of more sorta' geared delights, like a Bob Dylan best-of,
or some such sorta' good disc, "Enema Of The State" meanwhile
getting safely tucked away into the void that is my purse (yes, I
wear a purse, and am comfortable enough in my masculinity to admit
it, thank you very much!), where it will remain idle 'til I get home
and can spend some personal "quality time" with this beast.
As the night goes on, me and my friend, the only other real rocker
in the room, regain control over the stereo and we blast a very out
of place copy of Blue Oyster Cult's "Specters". As the album
progresses, the room becomes more and more desolate, until my friend
and I are the only ones left in the room. That's right, folks, B.O.C.
clears 'em out, and we hadn't even gotten to the disco-drenched track
'Searchin' For Celine' yet! And then I get to thinking… Blink-182
gets put on, and kids bitch, but they stay in the room to bitch. Throw
on some quality rock, like the B.O.C., and they don't bitch, they
just split. Interesting, ain't it?
See, it's the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome: something like Blink-182
makes an easy target. The kids can take pot shots all they want, and
no one'll object seein' as how Blink is so deeply entrenched in the
abyss of pop-culture lameness that to speak up in defense of "Enema
Of The State" is like defending W. Bush's foreign policy in a
room full of bomb victims. But where's the chorus of disapproval rising
up to condemn "Specters"? No one would dare! See, the last
thing anyone wants to do at a sorta' party is hold an opinion contrary
to the sorta' code, one which might dethrone a figurehead of faux-cool.
Is B.O.C. one of those sorta' cool bands everyone has to pretend to
like in order to fit in and effectively sorta' assimilate themselves
into the echelons of being sorta' cool? No one knows, and so no one
speaks up, but one thing's for sure, B.O.C. is REAL! Even a watered
down album like "Specters" is ten times too tough to be
considered sorta' anything, so like a moth to a flame, the porches,
kitchens and all points furthest from the stereo fill with college-aged-indie-minded-pose-knoblers
who just CAN'T FUCKING HANG.
Now I'm not about to insinuate Blink-182 is real rock and roll, or
real anything, in the proper term. They're pop. Sweet, lite, disposable
teen-pop, but dammit if "Enema Of The State" isn't one of
the most significant disposable pop albums (if there is such a thing)
of its' era, and mark my words, it will be remembered as such! I mean,
12 songs, 36 minutes…BEAT THAT! Absolutely godly production with
gajillion tracked vocals, mixed way up front with the guitars waaay
back there, and it even has the audacity to throw in the occasional
synth/string section fer cryin' out loud! I mean, this is a GREAT
pop album in every conventional sense, so bottom line, there's no
reason to even notice it playing in the background. That's the album's
charm: catchy little non-abrasive, non-offensive pretty melodies,
the kind that play in the background and silently strike the subconscious,
lingering in the listener's psyche days after playing like every classic
radio song whose creators had the good sense to make that pact with
the devil for "that one big hit".
Yet oh how the sorta' horde doth gripe! I don't get it, like, what's
there to complain about? There's nothing to this music, it's just
really well produced slick pop, so how can one even muster the effort
to pay it any mind? You'd think these sorta' kids would just ignore
it and go about their casual conversations about who-fucked-who and
play their games of who can spout out the most cynical epigrams before
the bottle of sorta' cheap wine is all gone, but no, you get a barrage
of forced complaints. Now, I suppose if this were a crowd of avant-gardiste
pretentious types who didn't want their Stockhausen or Xenakis marathons
interrupted by any silly teen music it would be understandable that
"Enema Of The State" would be total sandpaper to their elitist
ears, but PUNCHLINE, guess what band "Enema Of The State"
interjected on the listening menu that evening? THE FUCKING WHITE
STRIPES!!! So it's not like we're dealing with a crowd of purists
or connoisseurs here! Yet "Enema Of The State", an absolute
pop masterpiece, serves merely as whipping boy to their pseudo-cynicism,
whilst a classic slab like "Specters" holds court to an
all-but empty room. I do declare, it's enough to drive a young person
nervous!
'Spose it's about time I defend the bold claim of Blink-182 as curators
of this said pop masterpiece…Well, in order to understand "Enema
of The State", one must lay down all preconceived notions of
what Blink-182 has come to represent in contemporary pop culture.
Let all your memories of backwards-fitted-red-hat-wearing-truck-bonzin'-sweet-bros,
(admittedly the bulk of Blink-182's fan base) fade into dust. Let
go every previous and post effort Blink-182's made at warming up to
your heart. See, Blink-182 the band and the personnel are nothing
to phone home to mom about. Their arrangements are barely interesting,
their schtick and imagery (that of any-moderately-popular-perpetual-high-school-student-USA)
can be difficult (but worth it) and necessary to ignore, and the remainder
of their catalog ("Enema of The State" is the 3rd of 5 albums
these Poway goobers have under their loosely fit belts, right next
to the cell phone holsters) is sub-par at best. "Enema of The
State", though, is a truly monumental achievement in the pop
idiom.
As stated, the production pushes the envelope as far as multi-tracked
vocals and meticulously-mic'ed drums go. I mean, words can't begin
to describe how fucking crisp and clear every catchy as hell note
comes through. Say what you will about the guy, but its undeniable
producer Jerry Finn knows how to turn sub par any-town-otherwise-perma-local-pop-punk
crud into national hit makers. Dude's done AFI's latest, Sum 41, Green
Day, Rancid, and a bunch others (including Color Me Badd and Ill Repute,
incidentally). Yep, he's worked with the best of 'em, real legends
in the industry (oh wait, gimmie a second here, I got my tonge stuck
my check…). The guy's résumé reads like an epitaph
of "real" punk rock, in the elitist post-'80 hippy sense
of the word, but since that's a funeral I'm not about to attend, let
alone clip the obituary to, let's go on to sing this man's praises:
It's a real shame "Enema of The State" wasn't pressed on
vinyl, 'cause there's a great symmetry to the album. Side A would
start with one of the killerest (better BELIEVE that's a word) and
slickest song-to-song transitions that would make some of the segue
ways on "It's Alive!" sound like the first pressing of the
Crossed Out 7" (if you got that reference, it's probably been
a loooong time since you've been laid) as 'Dumpweed', a fitting opening
track about unpredictable females, goes straight into 'Don't Leave
Me' without pausing for a second. After that seamless transition one
of the few pauses on our theoretical side A introduces one of the
weakest points on the album, 'Aliens Exist', which has lyrics too
dumb even for MY tastes, but excusable only in that it's my theory
the band was trying to cash in on the "alien fad" that was
going on around the time "Enema" was released (hey, remember
embroidered gray-alien patches sewed onto Jansport backpacks? How
TOTALLY late-90s!), but that tune segue ways into the clean guitar
intro of 'Going Away To College', another teen anthem that's about
as deep as an episode of Boy Meets World. This gives way to yet ANOTHER
perfect transition when, along with the ringing out of the guitar,
the last sung out syllable of 'Going Away To College' is interrupted
by the intro riff to 'What's My Age Again?', one of the album's two
"hits" about being too socially immature for your age. This
is either a tragic anthem for those said sweet-bros who I remember
buzzing around my high-school parking lot after class, like flies
on shit trying to score a statutory rape case (bro), or, such is the
case with shows like Saved By The Bell, Blink 182 is utilizing "aspiring
programming", or, tackling issues just beyond the age group of
their primary fan base as a marketing tool, in that, as a 14-year-old
who acts like a 14-year-old sings along to 'What's My Age Again?',
they can dream of the day they'll be 23-year-olds acting like 14-year-olds
and feel out of place with society. Clever strategy, boys. The album's
second pause clearly isolates the final song, 'Dysentery Gary', on
what would be the 1st side. 'Dysentery Gary' is another one of those
teen-love-gone-sour anthems that Blink seems to have such a sick fetish
for.
I'd like to spend a little time with the first cut on the theoretical
side-B, 'Adam's Song'; This is the one that made the headlines years
ago when some kid, supposedly inspired by the "dark" (about
as dark as a primary color) lyrical content of the song, actually
hung himself. Here's a true story: I used to go out with this girl
who lived with her crazy-pill-popping-pseudo-suicidal-sister-in-law
who had this quasi-lesbo crush on my then girlfriend (do I need to
tell you these girls lived in a trailer?). This sister-in-law was
in a perpetual state of being fretted about; One day it'd be pills,
the next self mutilation, the next her job situation, blah, blah,
blah, you know the type. Anyhoo, I remember it was a big ado around
the trailer one day, 'cause this nutty sister-in-law broad was spinning
'Adam's Song' back-to-back for days, and everyone was sure it was
a "cry for help". He-he. Y'know, I think the most depressing
thing about 'Adam's Song' is the fact that our culture has come to
a point where a song containing the line "Remember the time that
I spilled the cup of apple juice in the hall/ Please tell mom this
is not her fault" not only grabs national media attention as
being the impetus for teen suicide, but is now (well, it's all been
forgotten by now. This seasons' suicide anthem is more likely on a
Papa Roach, or Disturbed album I'm sure…) considered a universal
cry for help.
I mean, how perfect is that? Take that Ian Curtis! Take that Albert
Camus! All your deep pontifications and dark pretentious pseudo-intellectualism
has now become the stuff of filler songs on 'tween pop albums! I mean,
how can anyone POSSIBLY think suicide is some sort of deep artistic
statement when fucking Blink 182 sings about it! I don't care if this
song inspires anyone to kill themselves, but I do hope from the bottom
of my heart that after hearing this song at least one teenager will
see the light and wash out their black hair dye, stop cutting themselves,
and trade their Birthday Party albums in for some vintage Gary Glitter!
But the fun doesn't end there folks, 'cause before the synth harmonizer
affect which creates the eerie closure to the piano-laden four-minute
ballad of 'Adam's Song' has a chance to end completely, the first
two beats of 'All The Small Things' pounds in, creating one of the
most brilliantly tasteless transitions in pop history. Oh lawd, 'tis
'nuff tuh bring wadduh tuh mahn eyez! The supposedly "deep"
'Adam's Song' not only followed, but damn near yanked offstage with
a cane by the saccharine sweet 'All The Small Things'? Jerry Finn,
you are my fucking god! Allow me now to pray to you in my ancient
religious tongue: nuh-na, nuh-na, nuh-na, nuh-na-na-na, nuh-na, nuh-na,
nuh-na, nuh-na-na-na (repeat 'til rapture).
After a transition like that you'd think they'd have the good sense
to not try and top themselves and cut out the song-straight-into-song-segue-ways…And
you'd be right. The rest of the album flows along in a fairly blasé
fashion, with proper spacing between each overproduced contempo-teen
burst of suburban faux-fury, the next of which being 'Party Song',
which is what putz-schmendicks would call "the punk cut"
on the album, just 'cause it has a speedy vocal delivery during the
verse. Finding it hard to sing-a-long without loosing your breath?
Maybe it's 'cause you don't have the privilege of singing every other
line on multiple vocal tracks and frankensteining them together with
Pro-Tools like our man Mark Hoppus. Don't worry, there's always the
chorus: "na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na (again, repeat 'til rapture)".
The next tune 'Mutt' is nothin' but filler. Who the hell knows what
pertinence the lyrics about some fictional archetypal lame couple
have in anyone's life, but the song's pretty much equally as catchy
as anything else on the album, so no one really notices. 'Mutt' is
theoretical side B's 'Aliens Are Real', just as the no-pause segue
way from 'Adam's Song' to 'All The Small Things' is theoretical side
B's 'Dumpweed' to 'Don't Leave Me' transition. See what I'm saying
about the absolute perfect symmetry on this album? The next cut is
another filler track called 'Wendy Clear' which contains such pseudo-sophisticated
lines as "I'll play with fire to break the ice" and "I'll
see you with another guy who pretends/not to hear you when you cry
(oh yeah)". The sheer audacity the songwriting team of Hoppus/Delonge
(Mark and Tom respectively, the songwriters/singers/bass/guitar players
in the group) has to paint a picture of themselves as soft and sensitive
lummoxes one moment and then doubtlessly from the same pen write a
line like "He took the seat of his own bike because he liked
how it felt". It's that chameleonic marketing strategy of the
group that's as grating as it is admirable! I mean, who else could
sell t-shirts both adorned with glittery butterflies and the bands
name written in Lisa Frank style cursive (of which I own one, purchased
in a Goodwill thrift store in Oxnard, CA along with a M- copy of Sweet's
'77 LP "Level Headed" for a combined total of $3) just as
well as the more masculine "moshing-rabbit-with-ransom-style-punk-letters"
design? It'd make Bowie weep! But Bowie would never have the good
sense to take an otherwise throwaway track like 'Wendy Clear' and
subtlety slip in synth harmonizers, and even a synth church organ
in on the last chorus, one of the corniest-in-a-good-way-considering-the-context
moves of the album, again, giving a well deserved nod to Jerry Finn.
This brings us to the last track on the album, 'Anthem', which wasn't
a hit for Blink, but I do believe Good Charlotte had a steady spot
in any music television countdown for about three seconds with a song
of the same name recently (recently being about four years after the
release of "Enema of The State"), the gist basically being
in both songs that you're young, your parents suck, and oh isn't it
a drag when you're a white heterosexual male living in upper-middle-class
suburbia and you're so unique, and such an individual, and if only
your parents could see that long enough to let you get your high school
sweethearts name tattoo'd across your stomach in old English? C'mon,
we've all heard the song before, no need to pay it any more attention
than we already have…But that's just it: the song is utterly
forgettable, which is a pre-requisite for the perfect ending track
to any great pop album, and once it's all over, that's exactly what
you get with "Enema of The State"; a peerlessly constructed
pop album that has all the makings of a classic, save for the pre-requisite
elapsing of a decade-or-so.
But as much as there is to be said about Jerry's production and structuring
on "Enema of the State", credit really has to go to Blink
182 for writing ridiculously catchy songs. I mean, of course I've
heard songs like 'All The Small Things' and 'What's My Age Again?'
a gazillion times on the radio and TV, but going back to the sorta'
party when I played the CD; That night was my first time hearing any
of the other songs on that album, and when I played the CD at home
the morning after I seriously had to ask myself if the songs I was
hearing for the 2nd time in my life were the radio songs that had
already been fully assimilated into my memory cavity because they
seemed so familiar after hearing them just once the night before!
I have no idea how they chose which songs to put on the radio, 'cause
damn near every song on here is just as catchy as all the others,
which is what makes the album so addictive. It's like, if you get
one song in your head you gotta listen to the whole damn album to
figure out which one it is, and with all those song/song transitions
you don't even get a chance to take this thing off after you play
it. On a recent trip up the coast of California with my power violence
band, of all the music we listened to, only two albums were listened
to uninterrupted and in their entirety, and those were MC5's "Back
In The USA" and Can's "Soundtracks". Only one album
was played twice uninterrupted and in its' entirety, though; any guesses?
That's right, Blink 182, "Enema of The State". Of course
this is the same band that put out the bland as hell "Cheshire
Cat" and "Dude Ranch", and plus I heard 'em play 'All
The Small Things' live on SNL and it just sounded TOTALLY weak without
Jerry's unseen hand and muti-tracking, so at the end of the day the
production still overshadows the band and their songwriting. I mean,
anyone can write a catchy three chord pop tune, and truth-be-known,
there's not much difference between Blink 182 and any cruddy perma-local
pop punk band playing shitty all-ages clubs (kept open only by the
grace of the blind eye of the local fire marshal and the proprietor's
penchant for leering at under-aged girls in fishnets and the occasional
BJ bestowed upon him by the trumpet player of the ska band he "might
be able to squeeze in on Saturday night's lineup") on the weekend
to a select handful of their "bros" and schoolmates, but
lets not hold that against the Blinksters, because even if an album
like "Enema of The State" would have been made regardless
of what group of honky suburbanites was relegated under Jerry's control,
"Enema of The State" was still made, and the pop music world
is a better place because of it.
But on the issue of punk rock, let's hop in my plutonium-fueled Delorian
and go back to that 'sorta party I was talking about oh-so-many years
ago: Say I didn't throw on "Enema of The State", say I threw
on "Damned, Damned, Damned", "Ramones", "Young
Loud And Snotty", or any other universally acknowledged "classic"
punk rock album, do you think I'd get confronted with these hipster
kids gripping in the background? Hell no, and not because those kids
dig any of the aforementioned albums (probably wouldn't be able to
wrangle up more than two copies of each of those records [if that]
in the cumulative record collections of the crowd that was at that
sorta' party) or enjoy "real" punk rock in general, no,
I'm sure they'd be silent as the sheep they are 'cause those "classic"
punk bands have that status attached to them where if anyone says
"oh man, turn this fucking Ramones shit OFF and play some Pinback,
dammit!" they know they're in for a lecture (rightfully so) about
how significant Ramones were to the evolution and history of rock
music, blah, blah, blah, and so no one DARES bitch about records like
that getting thrown on, even though I'm sure deep down the "punk
classics" bug those kids just as much as "Enema of The State".
I mean, "Enema of The State" is an AMAZING pop album, but
a terrible punk, or even rock record, yet it's interesting to look
at the social-political implications of an album like "Enema
of The State" as it pertains to the social-political standards
of punk rock: Like, isn't it all supposed to be about driving the
squares nuts? I mean, "Ramones" was nothing if not fingernails
scraped across a chalkboard to the ears of the pretentious progressive
connoisseurs of FM radio at the time for the simple fact that it was
too short, too loud, too fast, and TOO DUMB uber alles to be taken
serious. Well, what "Enema of The State" lacks in the short/fast/loud
department, it makes up for IN SPADES in dumbness, and dammit if it
still doesn't have the same effect today on pop-elitists as "Ramones"
had on the squares of its' day. So maybe I'm wrong, maybe Blink 182
is as punk as their moshing rabbit t-shirts would have you believe.
It's definitely something I'd like to but some serious thought into
if I could just get these goddamn melodies out of my head! And the
colored girls sing: "nuh-na, nuh-na, nuh-na, nuh-na-na-na, nuh-na,
nuh-na, nuh-na, nuh-na-na-na"
