Little C: Blink 182 California (Deluxe)
Readers, those of you who were with us last year undoubtedly remember my song by song, jet-lag fueled review of Blink 182's first album I was willing to acknowledge in a solid decade, California. Well when the band were recording that record they had something like 30+ songs that they left on the studio floor, and since they maybe felt bad for the prolonged absence (or maybe to make up for their involvement in the Fyre Festival) they have bestowed upon us an additional album with 10 real songs, a joke track, and an acoustic version of Bored To Death.
I'm not going to bore you guys with the track by track rundown of this album. It's really good, well executed songs with some very interesting lyrics and great hooks... but I can see why these songs were relegated to being B-sides. This is a dark record. It works much better as the shadow side of the original album which played mostly with fun and upbeat pop-punk. The songs from Deluxe are mostly themed around loss and while there are two songs that stick out as being a little more upbeat (ironically they're called Misery and Hey, I'm Sorry) the vast majority of the tracks don't shy away from their rooted emotions of anger and pain.
Parking Lot which kicks off Deluxe is an ode to the lost punk clubs that the band started in. Don't Mean Anything deals with a parent abandoning a child (Mark's dad did leave his family when he was a kid so the song feels a little extra personal.) 6/8 is actually written in six-eight time for all the music nerds out there, but it's so blatantly aggressive that it would have felt out of place on any other Blink 182 album. In a way you can hear Matt Skiba and his influence a little more on a lot of these songs, and many of them would fit right in on an Alkaline Trio or The Sekrets album.
The album wraps up with the joke track I Can't Get You More Pregnant, and then goes into a live acoustic performance of Bored to Death. In line with the feel for the rest of the album, this version is darker than the original. Stripping out the production on the song makes the bass line hit much harder and most of the guitar parts are played palm-muted to reduce their melodic punch. I gotta say, for a summer album this CD is going to have to be switched in and out with the original California if we're going to make it to August without some sort of breakdown.
Happy Listening,
Little C
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I'm not going to bore you guys with the track by track rundown of this album. It's really good, well executed songs with some very interesting lyrics and great hooks... but I can see why these songs were relegated to being B-sides. This is a dark record. It works much better as the shadow side of the original album which played mostly with fun and upbeat pop-punk. The songs from Deluxe are mostly themed around loss and while there are two songs that stick out as being a little more upbeat (ironically they're called Misery and Hey, I'm Sorry) the vast majority of the tracks don't shy away from their rooted emotions of anger and pain.
Parking Lot which kicks off Deluxe is an ode to the lost punk clubs that the band started in. Don't Mean Anything deals with a parent abandoning a child (Mark's dad did leave his family when he was a kid so the song feels a little extra personal.) 6/8 is actually written in six-eight time for all the music nerds out there, but it's so blatantly aggressive that it would have felt out of place on any other Blink 182 album. In a way you can hear Matt Skiba and his influence a little more on a lot of these songs, and many of them would fit right in on an Alkaline Trio or The Sekrets album.
The album wraps up with the joke track I Can't Get You More Pregnant, and then goes into a live acoustic performance of Bored to Death. In line with the feel for the rest of the album, this version is darker than the original. Stripping out the production on the song makes the bass line hit much harder and most of the guitar parts are played palm-muted to reduce their melodic punch. I gotta say, for a summer album this CD is going to have to be switched in and out with the original California if we're going to make it to August without some sort of breakdown.
Happy Listening,
Little C
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