Weekly Analysis Week 1: Blink 182

Weekly Analysis: Blink 182

For my weekly analysis I will be writing on the topic of pop music. Most likely it will be in the genre of pop-punk/alternative. I chose this topic because it is something that I used to be into. As I stated earlier, I love Blink 182. Band members include: Mark Hoppus, Thomas Delonge, and Travis Barker whom replaced Scott Raynor on the “Enema of the State” album. They are my first loved band and still are. They brought punk music to the forefront of American music. They had a very likeable and catchy style of punk music. It was more melodic and mellow type of punk that no one had dared tried. The punk scene was about rebellion and the music reflected that. It was very angry and angst filled music. Blink 182 was able to take a punk style and mold it into a catchy pop style of punk. It definitely reflects their California, laid back style.
They were still able to keep a rebellious type of message, but it was not a negative one like most punk bands previous. It was more of a message of having fun and do what you want to do type of message. They portrayed this in their first big hit, “What’s My Age Again?” in which they ran around naked and caused a ruckus. This video got them on the map of American people, mostly teens. They then came out with the next song that may have solidified them as stars. This song was “All the Small Things.” With this, punk became pop-punk and it was a huge hit in American music.

They were able to do this because of their likeable personalities. You could tell that none of them had egos or were doing this for the money or fame. You could tell that they truly just were doing what they loved and wanted to share this with the world. They were also able to keep the “street cred” by being rebellious. They were rebellious, but not in the normal negative way. They just wanted to do what they want and not let anyone tell them what they should be doing, to not to conform to society. With them came a wave of pop-punk bands like New Found Glory. They continued to keep the mellow type of punk music.

These days it has become so accepted that it is ironically conformed to. So many people listen to this style of music with bands like All American Rejects, and Good Charlotte. This is where I lost my interest for this style of music. These bands seem to play music for all the wrong reasons, especially for what Blink 182 played for. They used their style for fame and not for fun and the message. So now it has become popular to be rebellious and is a complete irony and completely wrong, because it seems that people listen to these bands because they think they are supposed to based on the pop culture and they don’t listen to it for the content and the musical talent. So when Blink 182 left the scene so did the integrity of the music.