Hola, kids.
In doing these daily articles on music and my appreciation for forgotten or neglected works, I have expressed my share of love for admittedly flawed material. You could chalk this up to my apologist nature or maybe just bad taste. Either way, I really dig (or dug) some sub par stuff. That does not mean, however, that the artist is not talented or that I should feel badly about it - quite the contrary, it is this basic appreciation for the unappreciated that motivated me to start this whole project in the first place. Rather than spending the course of a night out with friends explaining just why it is that you need to listen to Akira Yamaoka or why watching Lost in chronological order is a revelatory experience, I can collect my thoughts and publish them here. Doing so not only allows for a clearer, more concise train of thought but also retains them for posterity (or however much of that exists in this digital world). So why the preamble? Why the preemptive defense of my bad taste? Because today's post is related to the divisive, guilty-pleasure band that is Blink 182. I say related, though, because it's not really about them, but a side project that shed light on their career and mind set, so let's take a look at the Blink 182 related group Box Car Racer and their single, eponymous release.
If you've been able to stitch together a loose chronology from the content of these posts, you'll notice a consistent streak of shamefully poppy music running through my life's musical growth. While I can swear up and down that I love trip hop, electronica and indie hip hop, there's still some bald-faced popular music in there. One such example is my Blink 182 phase. I can attest that it was, indeed, a phase due to the fact that the music no longer does it for me - it can temporarily take me back to that time and place but I longer get the same effect from it. Both the subject matter and audience are not aimed at me; it's all a callback to my time in junior high and high school, when girls and tests were the biggest problems I faced (supposedly). Looking back from my current position in life I can see what the appeal was, though. I am still a sucker for a simple, catchy guitar riff over the right bass notes, and that's basically what the band did well. The songs were simple, the vocals and lyrics un-challenging and the length was nonexistent, but songs like Dammit, Pathetic, Man Overboard and Anthem Pt. 2 were all songs that had great riffs to prop them up. At the time I was into them I caught tons of flak for it, establishing my apologist nature from an early age.
As the band grew older, like anything else, they changed and struggled with identity and limitations. From what I've read Blink 182 had internal strife and conflict about what direction they were headed, as does any band that achieves any sort of mainstream success. What they did, though, was a brave move - they just went separate ways. Instead of permanently breaking up they just went off on other projects to express their unique ideas. For bassist/singer Mark Hoppus...I'm not sure what it was, but I didn't have the interest. Honestly I find something about him grating, like he would have been smug and obnoxious if I'd known him. It propbably sounds very knee-jerk, armchair-quarterback to say it, but from the glimpses of his day-to-day persona, he always seemed like he was kind of a jerk. Maybe it's just me, or someone I knew that reminded me of him. Vague associations. Whatever. It's beside the point, really. What I did have an interest in, though, was guitarist Tom Delonge's first solo effort, titled Box Car Racer, because while Hoppus seemed to sing and write all the soft, easy, round parts for the band, anything angular and interesting seemed to come from Delonge. That could be completely missing the mark, but it was always my impression that there were two distinct voices constantly trying to assert dominance over Travis Barker's impeccable drumming. Seriously, Barker is an unparalleled drummer, no caveats here, and his intense playing is the glue holding all this music together. Without his tight drumming this could all have sounded sloppy and tired, but he brings his A game every single time.
Shortly after it's release, I heard the album in a music store somewhere I can't recall. I just remember it was at a time in my life flush with flux, uncertaintiy looming around the bend, which I think drove me back to musical comfort food. The sound on Box Car Racer's self titled album was like a modified, more intelligent Blink 182, only distilled down to Tom's voice and style. Hearing an album that was all Delonge's creation was where I really realized the earlier distinction in their writing styles that I was pointing out - it does sound like Blink 182, but without a significant portion of the poppier elements and about-a-girl pop-punk subject matter. Free to write whatever he wanted, Delonge took the opportunity to write about bigger, grander concepts like poverty, power and the reasons we feel helpless in society. There are multiple references to wanting to destroy the CIA headquarters in Langely and the cover-up of UFO's by the government, all stuff that would be largely out of place on a Blink album at the time. Songs deal with darker subject matter like suicides, addiction and loss & regret, showing that Tom was taking small steps into a more adult world. Granted, at times it certainly comes across as mawkish or heavy handed, but it was a step in the right direction. What was most telling was the absence of any juvenilia whatsoever - not a single fart joke to be found. Of particular note is one of my favorite songs about an unfathomable subject. Elevator deals explicitly with the imagery we were subjected to on September 11th, expressing the thoughts of a jaded viewer unnervingly well.
Overall the album seems to be just bit heavier and bleaker than anything Blink 182 had released up until that point, which is why I think I can still appreciate more so than his other work. There's almost an element of legitimacy or gravity he fosters in Box Car Racer, which makes it a shame he's never done anything else under the moniker. Instead we have him reteaming with Hoppus to resurrect the Blink banner once again. Still, I'm glad I gave this album a chance - it's been a unique source of pleasure over the years, even if it's of the guilty variety.
In doing these daily articles on music and my appreciation for forgotten or neglected works, I have expressed my share of love for admittedly flawed material. You could chalk this up to my apologist nature or maybe just bad taste. Either way, I really dig (or dug) some sub par stuff. That does not mean, however, that the artist is not talented or that I should feel badly about it - quite the contrary, it is this basic appreciation for the unappreciated that motivated me to start this whole project in the first place. Rather than spending the course of a night out with friends explaining just why it is that you need to listen to Akira Yamaoka or why watching Lost in chronological order is a revelatory experience, I can collect my thoughts and publish them here. Doing so not only allows for a clearer, more concise train of thought but also retains them for posterity (or however much of that exists in this digital world). So why the preamble? Why the preemptive defense of my bad taste? Because today's post is related to the divisive, guilty-pleasure band that is Blink 182. I say related, though, because it's not really about them, but a side project that shed light on their career and mind set, so let's take a look at the Blink 182 related group Box Car Racer and their single, eponymous release.
As the band grew older, like anything else, they changed and struggled with identity and limitations. From what I've read Blink 182 had internal strife and conflict about what direction they were headed, as does any band that achieves any sort of mainstream success. What they did, though, was a brave move - they just went separate ways. Instead of permanently breaking up they just went off on other projects to express their unique ideas. For bassist/singer Mark Hoppus...I'm not sure what it was, but I didn't have the interest. Honestly I find something about him grating, like he would have been smug and obnoxious if I'd known him. It propbably sounds very knee-jerk, armchair-quarterback to say it, but from the glimpses of his day-to-day persona, he always seemed like he was kind of a jerk. Maybe it's just me, or someone I knew that reminded me of him. Vague associations. Whatever. It's beside the point, really. What I did have an interest in, though, was guitarist Tom Delonge's first solo effort, titled Box Car Racer, because while Hoppus seemed to sing and write all the soft, easy, round parts for the band, anything angular and interesting seemed to come from Delonge. That could be completely missing the mark, but it was always my impression that there were two distinct voices constantly trying to assert dominance over Travis Barker's impeccable drumming. Seriously, Barker is an unparalleled drummer, no caveats here, and his intense playing is the glue holding all this music together. Without his tight drumming this could all have sounded sloppy and tired, but he brings his A game every single time.
