blink-182 - Enema of the State (1999)

I've been told that this cover photo has lead many males to discovering masturbation back in the day. I hadn't, but oh well, I guess I gotta fit in: SET PHASERS FOR FUN! AND ERECTIONS!! AND FUN WITH THOSE ERECTIONS!!!

Sometime after those millions of blink-182 releases, the band decided to kick out drummer Scott Raynor due to his alcoholism, which is a pretty shitty situation to be in for all parties involved, but they recruited Travis Barker, drummer for the Aquabats, and you already know how that turned out. Dude RIPS at drums! He makes such simple songs needlessly complicated on drums, but in awesome ways! Okay, now with that out of the way...

This album finds blink-182 cleaning their sound up a lot, with more of an emphasis on melody, memorable riffs, and general radio-accessibility than ever before, but that isn't a bad thing at all, because SPOILER ALERT: IT'S AWESOME!! This album is fun as shit, except for when it's not!! Trust me, when you get to "Adam's Song", which might as well have kicked off the sound for many emo bands, you'll probably wanna do bad things to yourself as bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus describes crippling depression perfectly. In context, the lyric "Remember the time I spilled the apple juice in the hall? Please tell mom this is not her fault." is one of the most depressing lyrics I've ever heard, despite it sounding odd on paper. Bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus will make you want to jump off of a tower until...

DA NA. DANANANA *insert more guitar riff onomatopoeia wankery*!! Guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge kicks into the SMASH HIT single "All the Small Things" which my dumb 12 year old ass saw in music video form back in the day and actually thought it was unironic! God, the things I could tell myself back then (not limited to just "stop caring" and "it gets hard for a reason, buddy") but my idiotic self probably wouldn't listen, but if he didn't, and trust me, he DIDN'T, he would and DID have a soundtrack of youth empowerment! When I hear this album, I'm instantly reminded of all the great and shitty moments of being a teenager, and man, like I've said before, wasn't that some shit? I guess I can say that about nearly every blink-182 album, but "What's My Age Again" is a question I'll be undoubtedly be asking myself into my senior years because I'm in my 20s and still a shithead, so that along with the fact that my memory is already SHIT, it'll go hand-in-hand!

I could spend much longer ranting about how genuinely great, charming, catchy, and everything else this album is, but chances are that you've already heard this album a million times, and I hope this brings you to your 1,000,001th, because isn't that a cool looking number?! Kinda?! Fuck you, I'm going to go listen to blink-182.

Sorta-funny-but-not-really side note: When I first got this album, my brother gave it to me in MP3 form and I went years thinking "Aliens Exist" was the intro to the album, because my brother deleted the first two songs because he didn't like them, but how kickass of an intro would that be?! Doesn't make any sense to me to have it as the third track. It also doesn't make any sense to me how he didn't like "Dumpweed" or "Don't Leave Me" but I just don't understand that guy sometimes, and likewise. I had a ska phase that had an atomic effect of giving everyone in my family PTSD flashbacks whenever they hear a trumpet, for God's sake.

9/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!