Make no mistake, there's a myriad of reasons why so many teenagers are drawn to pop punk music. It's rebellious without delving into more dangerous feeling genres like hardcore punk or gangsta rap. It's musically edgier and harder than mainstream pop while still being ultra melodic and a blast to sing along with when gathered with a bunch of buddies. Its core musicianship is accessible with simple power chord attacks and non-virtuosic singers. It touches on the core topics that dominate hormonal teen brains — falling in love, heartbreak, parental frustration, hanging with friends, feeling outcast, unfair societal systems, etc. — while still being completely unafraid to be childishly silly and sophomoric.
For scores of kids, pop punk is a delightful sonic bridge between kiddie naivete and the daunting prospect of the adult world. Ultimately, it's a genre that allows kids to feel validated, confident and less alone in the world at a time when many feel their most unseen, unsure and isolated.
For all those reasons, Blink-182 is the ultimate pop punk band.
Admittedly, Blink-182 was my favorite band growing up. The band hit at nearly the perfect time for me, as the group's superstar-making 1999 album Enema of the State dropped exactly one week after my 12th birthday. "What's My Age Again" and "All the Small Things" were tearing up the charts on MTV's Total Request Live exactly when I craved that seed of snotty musical defiance. I latched on for the ride and saw a band of punks from San Diego rise to become legitimately one of the biggest bands in the world.
While improbable, it's easy to see why Blink-182 hit it huge. This may seem wildly oversimplistic... but the songs were just catchy as hell. There's an innate melodicism that even other top pop punk acts that I adore like Green Day and The Offspring could never fully reach. It's sometimes remarked that a song is truly an earworm if you hear the melody and rhythm once or twice and then can hum it from memory.
Blink-182's discography is chock-full of humdingers.
Too often though, catchiness is conflated with a lack of depth. The tunes become disposable kiddie stuff — hence why some cringe at the prospect of 52-year-old bassist Mark Hoppus and 48-year-old guitarist Tom DeLonge still singing the tunes. But that's being entirely too dismissive of the duo's songwriting. While no one's gonna make the case that they're elite lyricists, they're certainly effective ones. There are moments of genuine tenderness to be found on a hopeless romantic Hoppus song like "Wasting Time" and real grounded anger in DeLonge's "Anthem, Part 2." And Blink-182 even tackled some serious subject matter better than more acclaimed artists. There aren't many songs wrestling with suicide that can match the almost euphoric melodic ache of "Adam's Song" and not a single hit tune has tackled the pain of divorce from a child's perspective the way that "Stay Together for the Kids" does.
The band’s actual musicianship and dynamics also often get overlooked. The co-lead singer dynamic between bassist Hoppus and guitarist DeLonge. While neither man has a dynamic vocal range — Hoppus tending to be understated and DeLonge possessing the nasal drone of an acne-ridden Taco Bell drive-thru attendant — the pair trading off vox duties adds spice and variety to Blink-182 albums that bands with better solo singers can rarely find. And while neither Hoppus or DeLonge are the greatest craftsmen at their stringed instrument of choice, Travis Barker legitimately is one of the best drummers to ever live, adding rich levels of almost unnoticeable rhythm to his bandmates melodic structure. Sincerely no knock on original drummer Scott Raynor — who is a great punk sticksmith on early albums like Dude Ranch and Cheshire Cat — but there’s a reason the band became massive as soon as Barker entered the fold.
Humor also played a crucial part in Blink-182 success. Hoppus and DeLonge essentially were a comedy duo, inserting jokes into songs, bantering at live shows and usually going for a laugh above anything else in their music videos. Do all the jokes hold up all these years later? Of course not. As products of their time, there were certainly more than a few gay jokes bandied about. But the guys also didn't present those jokes with malice behind them, allowing them to evolve into more mature adults... who still make all the same junior high-level dick jokes — but now with inclusivity!
Putting all those factors together, Blink-182 exceeded the full package when it comes to pop punk.
After Enema of the State broke huge 25 years ago, Blink-182 kept the momentum going with 2001's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (arguably the band's best studio album) and 2003's Blink-182. But the good times couldn't last. The band, in fact, couldn't stay together for the kids.
When Blink-182 went on indefinite hiatus in 2005, things shifted. They guys were slightly burned out and wanted to explore other projects, like DeLonge’s band Angels and Airwaves. By the time the trio reunited in 2009, things just felt a little off. The group’s 2011 album Neighbors was… in a word… bad. When DeLonge left the band in 2015, Alkaline Trio singer/guitarist Matt Skiba stepped into the void and aptly kept things going to a decent level, but it certainly wasn’t the same Blink.
Things changed in the wake of Hoppus battling cancer (so far successfully) and the COVID pandemic. The looming specter of mortality helped the group work through past issues, and DeLonge rejoined the band in 2022. Any thoughts of the reunion being purely a nostalgia play were put to rest with the 2023 release of One More Time…, easily the group’s best album in two decades.
When I saw Blink-182 at the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas last October, it honestly felt like they guys hadn’t missed a beat since their 2000s prime. When they announced the upcoming July 14 concert at the Gorge Amphitheatre, I didn’t hesitate to throw down a hefty chunk of cash for a ticket. Because Blink-182 was my favorite band decades ago and the band still holds up as one of my favs today.
Somehow — perhaps shockingly — Blink-182 has aged kind of gracefully.
But it's hard even when you've successfully aged well as a pop punk band, because our pop cultural landscape considers the genre to be only for kids. It's a genre devoid of reverence, so it gets othered as pure nostalgia in ways many other rock genres do not.
Of course that's bullshit.
For all their joking, Blink-182 isn't emotionally insignificant. Sure they sing about young love and f—ing up and parental issues and all the messy feelings those topics entail, but you know who else does? Bruce Springsteen. Taylor Swift. The f—ing Beatles. ALMOST EVERY POPULAR MUSICIAN. All the feelings people felt as teens listening to Blink-182 songs decades ago were real feelings. And they still are.
Yes, Blink-182's pop punk might resonate most with teens who are unseen, unsure and isolated, but you know who else can be crushed by feeling unseen, unsure and isolated?
Adults.
I'm not going to grow out of Blink-182 no matter how ludicrous society deems hanging on to a pop punk band to be.
I'm not going to grow out of Blink-182 because I deeply, sincerely love the band and its music. And you shouldn't grow out of the things that you love.
And that realization? To paraphrase the chorus of the Blink-182 hit "Dammit"...
Well that is growing up. ♦
Blink-182, Pierce the Veil, Landon Barker • Sun, July 14 at 7 pm • $180-$317 • All ages • Gorge Amphitheatre • 754 Silica Road, Quincy • gorgeamphitheatre.com
