Hinton: Oh, Blink, how we missed you

‘Blink-182 is back!’ Mark Hoppus, the band’s bassist, hollered at the Grammys last weekend. And… ‘Blink-182 is back!’ Mark Hoppus, the band’s bassist, hollered at the Grammys last weekend. And with those seven short syllables, 20-somethings across the United States asked themselves what their age was again and began celebrating. I know that for myself at least, the next day was much like the day after President Barack Obama won the election or the Steelers clinched the Super Bowl. Friends with lip rings hugged without saying a word, uncharacteristic smiles sat dumbly on the faces of classmates wearing Chuck Taylors and the air was alive. ‘Do you know what this means?’ a boy sitting next to me in a night class giddily asked me. ‘No,’ I said cooly, ‘but, damn it, I cannot wait to find out.’ Blink-182, one of the most successful pop-punk groups of the ’90s and early aughts, disbanded indefinitely in 2005. After the dismal side-project Angels and Airwaves and drummer Travis Barker surviving not only a reality television show but also a deadly plane crash, things looked dismal for Blink fans. Just this fall at a friend’s pop-punk party, while my roommate was crowd-surfing to the Blink single ‘Dammit,’ I toasted the air. ‘Here’s to you, Blink,’ I said as the song played. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’ Oh, me of little faith. Blink’s comeback is not exciting just because it was a central element of my awkward youth. Were that my only standard, I would be avidly checking Aqua message boards and posting petitions on MySpace to bring back the Baha Men. No, the return of the boys of 182 means two things. First, we will soon have a quite reliable way of measuring how music has changed in the past decade, and second, the solemnity of modern music may finally lighten up. To take the first point first, it is very unlikely that the members of Blink-182 have changed at all. Into their 30s, Blink band members were still titling albums ‘Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’ and penning lyrics such as, ‘Unless your mom will touch my c**k / I’ll never talk to you again.’ These are not high school kids we are talking about. We can likely expect that Mark, Travis and Tom are still the same foul-mouthed, poppy songsters we have always loved. If its music has changed at all ‘mdash; we will find out this summer, if its Web site is to be believed ‘mdash; it will be because of changes in the musical climate. We can take Blink-182 as a sort of musical constant whereby we can measure what shifts have taken place on the pop-punk landscape at large. Worried fans of the genre who have watched acts like the once-great Green Day devolve into mindless mouthers of rhetoric will finally be able to see if pop-punk is indeed dead or if it is just catatonic. Will Blink start screaming and using double bass pedals? Unlikely, but we cannot be sure. This summer will be revelatory either way. As for the second point, I think music has gotten far too serious. Although we have tongue-in-cheek offerings from Spank Rock and comedy acts like Flight of the Concords, these have been relegated to a category of spectacle. Furthermore, none of them can be considered punk in the least. Most pop-punk outfits nowadays regard themselves like they’re Beethovens with silly bangs. My Chemical Romance performs in marching band outfits, Hawthorne Heights still actually exists, and even newer bands have fused with hardcore and taken on unintelligible names like The Number Twelve Looks Like You. Blink-182’s irreverence is just what such a scene needs. There is nothing quite like three boys singing about male anatomy to lift the veil of bands that sing about apocalypse, the Virgin Mary and weaponry. Hopefully, pop-punkers will take a cue about the genre’s ironic roots ‘mdash; such bands as the Ramones and the Descendents ‘mdash; and I will no longer have to go into malls filled with 14-year-olds sporting jet-black locks and talking about blood. However, with great expectations comes great danger. What if the new Blink-182 album just isn’t that good? What if it decides to ‘go introspective’ and I’m forced to manhandle double entendres out of flaccid, confessional lyrics? What if it adds a cello player and starts writing songs about Canada and politics? I’ll never be able to dance like a pogo stick to another Blink album again. All I can do is hope this petition to stay juvenile reaches the ears of Blink-182. Avid Pitt News readers though I’m sure they are, such aspirations, I know, may be unrealistic. Let this be a message to the consumers, then. Ask for your music to be fun again. Even if Blink fails us, the news of its reunion has reminded countless adults of what made the music of their youth great: a sense of humor. Perhaps someone else will pick up the baton if Blink drops it. We can only pray. E-mail Erik at his Dude Ranch at ech15@pitt.edu.