Up All Night

I'm not planning on running again until Wednesday night, so I'm going way off-topic here.

(Up All Night digital single artwork by David Choe -- from the Blink-182 facebook page.)

Blink-182 has been part of my life since May 1999. I still remember the day I walked into the record store at the West Manchester Mall with a $20 in my pocket, likely a graduation gift, and not only no idea what to buy, but no idea of where I what I was doing in life. "What's My Age Again?" was playing in the store, and it just seemed right.

Let's flash back. Job prospects were looking sketchy, to see the least. I hadn't been offered either of the jobs that I thought were my best chances coming out of college and other than a single interview the Monday after graduation, I wasn't getting any bites.

I spent a lot of time on AOL on the computer in the spare bedroom of my parents' house, looking for jobs on this new Internet thingy and instant messaging with my other equally unlucky friends.

It wasn't all bad. When I wasn't looking for gainful employment, I had plenty of time to spend my days sleeping till noon and shooting hoops at a court near my house in the afternoon, and spending my nights going out to the dive bars of York and Harrisburg with said friends. When I did find a job, in Philadelphia, I was an underutilized (paid) intern with lots of free time to sit in my basement cubicle and chat with my underutilized intern colleagues about the Eagles, the glory days of college, and where he'd go for lunch or happy hour.

Enema of the State was the soundtrack of that Summer, and "What's My Age Again?" was its anthem. For me, it was the beginning of a shift in my musical tastes that continues to this day...not that I don't still love Van Halen and occasionally blast the Crue, Poison, and their big haired ilk.

Since then, I've purchased a previous Blink-182 album, Dude Ranch, as well as the two follow-ups to Enema, the cleverly-named Take off Your Pants and Jacket and the last record before rising tensions in the band led them to go on "indefinite hiatus" in 2005, the self-titled Blink-182. They've all been on heavy rotation on my CD players and later MP3 players since and have been a gateway drug to other punk rock bands for me. (I'm not going to get into any arguments about what's punk and what isn't. I really don't care. It's all opinion. Nor am I claiming any expertise whatsoever of that subject matter.)

In the meantime, it seemed like we'd heard the last new music from Blink-182. I enjoyed Tom DeLonge's new band, "Angels & Airwaves", and Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker in "+44", but it just wasn't the same. Two friends and I did a very strong air-guitar rendition of "What's My Age Again?", complete with inflatable guitars at one of the friend's weddings, but we were no substitute for the real thing.

Unfortunately, it took the near-death of drummer Travis Barker in a 2008 plane crash to get the three arguing band members back together, but once the three of them were back in a room together, it seemed that they quickly decided to put aside their differences and get the band back together. They made their announcement as they presented at the 2009 Emmys, when they appeared in public together for the first time in four years, and quickly confirmed it on the band's website:

Hi. We're Blink-182. This past week there've been a lot of questions about the current status of the band, and we wanted you to hear it straight from us. To put it simply, We're back. We mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again. Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy. Summer 2009. Thanks and get ready.

After their bitter breakup, would it last? So far, yes. The reunited Blink-182 indeed went on tour in Summer 2009; I had a great time seeing them live for the first time on a rainy August night at Hersheypark Stadium, and now they've finally put out their first new material since 2003.

You can listen to their new single, "Up All Night" here (from the band's official YouTube site):



I like it. It took a few listens, but I really, really like it.

The main criticism of it that I've read is that it sounds more like Angels & Airwaves than Blink-182. At first listen, I agreed. However, while it's never going to be mistaken for "What's My Age Again?" or "Dammit", or even the more serious "Adam's Song" or the more positive "All the Small Things", I do think it's the continuing evolution of what they sounded like on the last Blink-182 album. The seamless back-and-forth between the two singers is what makes it sound like Blink-182 to me, and Travis Barker is excellent on drums, as always. It grew on me as I listened to it a few times; the same was true of Blink-182.

As Blink-182 got older, their sound changed and their lyrics matured as well. Sophomoric humor and lyrics about high-school parties, breaking up with girlfriends, or the lack of such, and even an infatuation with Princess Leia comprise Dude Ranch and Enema of the State. The band was in their 20s and their listeners were high-school and college students. These themes are less common on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (except for, of course, the album title) and largely absent from Blink-182. But even so, this is pretty dark stuff for Blink:

Everyone wants to call it all around our life with a better name.
Everyone falls and spins and gets up again with a friend who does the same.
Everyone lies and cheats their wants and needs and still believes their heart.
And everyone gets the chills, the kind that kills when the pain begins to start.

Let me get this straight, do you want me here?
As I struggle through each and every year.
And all these demons, they keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.

Everyone's cross to bears the crown they wear on endless holiday.
Everyone raises kids in a world that changes life to a bitter game.
Everyone works and fights, stays up all night to celebrate the day.
And everyone lives to tell the tale of how we die alone some day.

Let me get this straight, do you want me here?
As I struggle through each and every year.
And all these demons, they keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.

They're older. Their listeners are older. The world seems more serious than it did in May of 1999. This isn't quite the Blink-182 of old. But 12 years later, it just seems right.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled program. If Van Halen ever puts out a new album, I'll review it. Please don't hold your breath.