This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
For a decade, SoCal trio Blink-182 have pretended to be the puerile Peter Pans of pop-punk — the boys who just wouldn’t grow up.
They filled their CDs with juvenile jokes and cheap puns. They made videos with porn stars. Their idea of deep thought was What’s My Age Again? But like a lot of arrested adolescents, they were just living in denial. And like a lot of class (and classless) clowns, they used their crunchy pop and crusty humour to hide their soft, sensitive centres.
Lately, though, something has changed. Maybe it’s their advancing ages. Or maybe it’s their recent side projects like Box Car Racer and Transplants. Whatever the cause, on their self-titled sixth CD, something has convinced the Blinkers to stop acting the fool and start acting like men. The 14 tracks on Blink-182 are the threesome’s most serious and honest songs to date. And their most original — instead of the pumping punk cliches, silly singalongs and sugar-buzz harmonies of old, these cuts are based around personal lyrics that engage your heart, intelligent songcraft that engages your brain and creative production that engages your ears.
Granted, they don’t totally abandon their skateboard roots, but they do deliberately and proudly broaden their technical and artistic horizons on ambitious tracks like Stockholm Syndrome and I’m Lost Without You, incorporating both the textured artiness of post-punk and the keening, roiling intensity of emo in a quest for distinction and originality. It’s too bad it took them 10 years to get to this point. But it’s nice to see they finally got here. Welcome to adulthood, guys.
