Tuesday, 24 December 2013

No.8 Blink-182: Very 90s

Look I'm not going to pretend that I remember the 90s but I've seen American Pie and at least four series of Friends so give me a break. A lot of the people who claim that they do remember the decade are probably lying and let's be honest, it was basically the same as the last ten years just with slightly baggier T-shirts and lots of centre-parting hairstyles. Oh yeah, the music was quite a lot better as well.

Bands often go through dramatic changes throughout their career; some to satisfy the public or a particular record label, others just to test themselves... or because they've discovered Jesus. Blink 182 are perhaps unique then in that they have kept true to their 90s punk image and genre, more importantly however is that the style of the music they produce hasn't varied a great deal in 20 years. Although it is often disputed whether this is a good thing or not, I personally believe it is a nice thing to see in the music industry with so many big-name artists succumbing to the popularity of electronic based crap which all sounds roughly the same. Despite perhaps looking like a trio of convicts standing trial for armed robbery, they are an excellent group and one of the leading faces of the pop-punk era. Again, I won't bore you with their history other than that they were revolutionary in the 1990s pop-punk scene alongside acts such as Green day and Sum-41 combining two previously separate musical genres. As an example of this, the greatest hits album released in 2005 shows how little the style of their music has changed with the obvious favorites of What's my age again and I miss you alongside each other in terms of similarity despite a 5 year gap between their releases. There are many more racy images of the band available on the internet but I'll let you browse for them yourselves (just remember to turn safe search off). Headlining at Reading festival this year, this is the band performing I miss you, be sure to listen to Blink 182 and other suggested bands.