The Watch - Ep. 54: Blink 182 Re-up

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald hype up the new HBO limited series 'The Night Of' (5:00) and the battle for the TV belt. Then, they give their complete Blink-182 breakdown, including the band’s top-five songs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch Reup. My name is Chris Ryan and I am an editor at the ringer.com and on the other line, fate fell short this time. It's Andy Greenwald! My man, can it be a re-up if we didn't up at all this week? I upped with House. Oh, you got way up with House.

I just got to say people should listen to this podcast you did because you got up, you got elevation. but you did it by going deep. Yeah. If I can mix that metaphor. You guys... Deeper than inside, as Rites of Spring would say. Me and House did a D.C. punk rock love poem. Love letter to D.C. punk rock.

And if you were into Fugazi or minor thread or any of the great bands from D.C., you should check it out. Joe House, man. What a Renaissance man. Who knew? I mean, I knew that he loved basketball, the game of Kings, and he was on his way to developing gout, the disease of kings, due to his voracious appetite. But I didn't know he was all about Revolution Summer. Yeah. You know, I didn't know he was, I didn't know he knew about that.

Yeah, man. That's exciting. That's exciting. And so just before we, we're going to talk music today, so I feel like it's okay to ask you this question. And TV. How do you feel about going all the way out there near punk bona fides for a different city? You know, I mean, you are legit.

You know the stuff. I just feel like that's, you took a step out there. I would have been nervous doing that. You mean talking about like the. the musical tradition of Washington, D.C., and its surrounding some roots. Yeah, I mean, you know a lot about it, and it's just a quick jaunt in the quiet car

on the Northeast Regional. It's not like we grew up far away from it, but... That's the cool thing about D.C., though. It's an idea as much as it is a place or a scene. You know, it was not to get to thought, like, mind-blowing, but, like, that whole thing about DIY culture and putting out your own records and doing things for a very specific reason

is what it's all about. out. That's beautiful. And it's interesting because we are going to talk about a very, very, very different punk rock tradition that developed a continent away. Yes. Because we're going to talk about Blink 182. We warn people on Twitter. We were serious. We did. And there was some good response. So I'm excited to talk about Blink. Andy, but before we get to Blink, who've got a new record coming out or out called California, do you want to talk a little bit about, I wanted to make sure our watch, our viewers, our listeners, our listeners of the watch were watching Night of,

which premieres this weekend. Yes, the first episode has been available. That's why we talked a little bit about it a week or two ago, because it's been available for HBO Go and HBO Now subscribers. I love HBO and HBO now subscribers. Because they have access to all 10 episodes of After the Thrones. They don't, unfortunately, have access to all 10 episodes

or nine episodes of The Morning After, which is our proposed after show for the night of, but we're working on it. But as we get closer to it premiering, you know what, I'm going to clear the floor here. You want to take it. This is just,

it's the best thing I think that's been on television in a while. And it's, look, it's not that complicated. It's like more or less an American version of one of those incredibly well-crafted British procedurals like Broadchurch that just takes painstaking detail.

It looks at, with painstaking, detail at every step of a crime and justice situation. I think the difference here is the talent involved making it. And it's Richard Price. And Richard Price is one of my favorite authors. He wrote Clockers. He wrote Freedom Land, Samaritan, The Whites, Lush Life.

If anybody is looking for a book to read, read Lush Life, it is going to mess you up. And he wrote, I believe, all the screenplays, all the teleplays for the show, along with Steve Zalian, who co-wrote, I think, a few. and Steve Zalian also directed a bunch of the episodes, as did James Marsh, who did some incredible work on the Red Riding miniseries. And it follows the story of this Pakistani-American kid named Nas, who is accused of a crime that he believes he didn't commit. And John Turturo plays a sort of down-and-out, Dr. Zismore-level defense attorney who comes to his

By the way, you know Dr. Zismore references accurate because they've put those ads for his character, John Starrup, on every subway. Viral marketing. And some really, really incredible performances by Michael K. Williams as someone that Nas meets in prison at Rikers and by Bill Camp as the lead detective on the case. And you may have seen Bill Camp in Midnight Special and he's a big stage actor. How many have you watched at this point? Because I know you're ahead of me. You're ahead of the general public. Like you've gone a little bit deeper.

I've watched five, yeah. Nice. Yeah. And it has not disappointed. No, I, I'm, it's riveting. It's so good. Here's, here's what, here's what I wanted to say about this, which is, you know, we, we teased that we were going to, we were going to have to hand out this, the summer 2016 TV championship belt at some point soon. And I think we both felt that Mr. Robot will probably be right there to snatch it.

And, you know, I've seen the first episode of the new season. I think it's terrific. But I think we really want to get people hype to watch Night of because it's a real, it's a real contender. I think that the reviews that have come out have been raves uniformly across the board. And I think one thing that they've all picked up on that I think was very smart is that the reference that might get more people to watch it isn't necessarily crime shows that you and I love, but maybe haven't gotten huge ratings, at least in this country. It's things like serial and making a murderer. Yeah. Yeah.

just in terms of the addictiveness and just the the total psychological anguish. I mean, you said painstaking, which is true, but I thought you were about to say pain giving because I found the first episode so hard to watch, but I couldn't stop watching it. And I agree with what you're saying, and part of what serial and making a murder, I think the connection it made with people is the fact that it humanized almost every single person, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, in the process of those cases. but I don't want to take away from the sort of artful storytelling that's happening here I mean this is shot the first few episodes were shot by Robert Ellswitt who's a long-time

collaborator with Paul Thomas Anderson and they are sumptuous like they are so gorgeous to watch and so incredibly inventive and disconcerting the way that they put you on edge in the weirdest little ways and the writing is just of the highest caliber man I don't really know what to say it price is just the guy he's he's the king. I'm glad you countered me with that because I think it's worth noting that I was saying those things serial making a murder because I just want people. Yeah, I want people.

Yeah. If that ticks your boxes, then you should check it out. But I definitely am a bigger fan of fiction in general. Yeah. Fictional storytelling. And especially in a week like this one, I'm a bigger fan of fiction. But yeah, I think that the potential upside, and again, the championship belt thing is one thousand, one million percent arbitrary. It's a thing that we made up. But I feel like we both are

in agreement that the show that has the belt has to have some kind of conversation driving element. It can't just be something that you and I love. And I think that the night of, I didn't think this when we first talked about it, but I'm thinking that it could serve that purpose just on the depth of the storytelling, the performances, and the subject matter if enough people get fired up about it. So we're making a pitch to even the playing field, watch it this weekend, and we will talk about it in more in-depth on Monday. Well, you know what it was cool is when we were first talking about this belt thing, I think that we had sort of imagined it being on during the gold.

Like, we had imagined if we had had a podcast during Pete Golden H-TV where there's just upwards of eight hours of television, really top-notch television per week to watch, or even 10 really great shows per year to watch. And that at any given month or in any given week or in any given night, the belt could change hands based on an episode to episode thing. Yeah. Or basically, oh, there was such a great episode of Mr. Robot,

which took the belt from the night of, which had taken the belt from Preacher in the course of 48 hours. And that is what we're looking at, because I got to say, man, Preacher keeps getting better. I was just watching the most recent one, the Sundown episode, Sundowner episode. It was lit, man.

They really are, like, hitting their stride. I feel like they're explaining things a little bit. bit better. Did you watch this last one? I've not watched it yet. You've caught me on here. There's a, no, no, but there's a set piece in this one that rivals the chainsaw fight from earlier in the season.

And a couple of the characters really have great moments in this episode. So I encourage people if they're struggling with preacher to stick with it. It'll be interesting to see, not just in terms of our arbitrary handing out of fictional hardware, but just in general in terms of the way people watch shows. how they respond to this conversation that we're having if a show like Preacher could ever actually hold the belt because, you know, things like Knight of and Mr. Robot and the FX OJ miniseries, they're so propulsive.

They are about an event or a series of events, you know, and so that drives people onto the next episode. And the thing about Preacher is that it is really just, it's a hang. You know what I mean? Like I noticed some of the, I kind of predicted this would, would filter in because it's almost inevitable. It happens to most shows, especially, early in their run. But even people who were pretty into the first two or three, you start to

get the, okay, but where is it going? Are they dragging their heels? Do they even know? And you start to doubt the person driving the bus. But as we said when we did the preacher pod the other week, like, honestly, I don't really care at this point. I know that sounds a little facile. And maybe if I was writing a review, I would find a way to phrase that better. But it's a good hang. Like, I'm pretty into them doing peyote and doing donuts in a school bus in the middle of the desert. That's well said. That's well said. the last point I wanted to make since we did that Preacher Pod and you know you made a you made the point of talking about how

Michael Slovis who was the DP on Breaking Bad and was responsible for so many of the visuals and is working on is working on Preacher and Sam Catlin worked on Breaking Bad and is obviously he's show running Preacher I didn't realize Preacher shot an Albuquerque so they must be using a lot of the same crew that's that's interesting which is pretty smart so albuquerque is to AMC as uh Atlantic is to Marvel. That's exactly right. It's just like where you go for a quality cable hang.

I thought you're going to say as like, you know, as the bayou is to HBO dramas. But, you know, again, that's just me doing a little inside reference to the fact that you and I both pitched to do after the Thrones episode five from a Bonmee place somewhere in the bayou. And for some reason we couldn't get the budget for it. They did say we could go to Carcoso, but we were like, you know, man, it's okay. Yeah, but didn't you think that was code for we're getting canceled?

I just assumed that when they send things to Carcosa, that just like, it's a kind of invitation you don't want to accept. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know. It's an interesting time. It's an interesting time. One last TV thing before we move on to Blink. Sure.

Just on a, this just occurred to me, but did you notice this? Someone had observed this well that, you know, so many of the shows that were greenlit for networks this fall. all like last year are derived from our favorite term from pre-existing IP. You know, we got the lethal weapon show. We got the training day show. We got the show from your boy Dennis Quaid's movie frequency. People are really tripling, quadrupling, quintupling down on this.

And this week, ABC's Mike Epps led Uncle Buck sitcom got canceled, meaning that every single – Damn, that's a cold world, really? Yes, which by the way, the ratings for it were really good. Tate's nodding. Rings for everything. Tate's like, I don't know if Tate's nodding because it's a cold world or because he's just on like apps.net right now. Tell me, tell me right now.

Reddit slash Eps. Favorite show was ABC's Uncle Buck because if so. Tate, what's your favorite show right now? Tate's recaps of Uncle Buck is a... Not Uncle Buck is Tate's favorite show. Just FYI. Not Uncle Buck? Like any show but Uncle Buck is his favorite show?

Yeah, pretty much. It seems like it. He cast a wide net. The point being, with that show going down, every single movie-based show from last year has now been canceled. And, you know, that I'm trying to think of all the duds along the way. There was, what was the one with Bradley Cooper's brain? He's smart. Limitless, dog. That got canceled.

Minority Report. And it's just like, it's one thing to be chasing what you think is gold. but like, that's pyrite dog. They're taking, uh, they're taking owls on the... And they're taking owls on the big screen too. Independence Day and Ninja Turtles, you know? Yeah, it doesn't sound like anybody... It sounds like Ghostbusters is not tracking well.

Yeah. Give us that fresh. Give us that fresh. Can we start saying that? Fresh i. Is that cool? Let's get it started. Let's take a quick break from our sponsors before we get on to Blink 182. Buying tickets online for sports and concerts has been.

a confusing process for a long time. It's always hard to find the best deal for that game or show you want to go to, and none of those older ticket sites want to change that. But Seekek is different. They've come along and created an amazing app and website that makes it easier than ever for fans to buy and sell tickets. I personally have been like rocking Seat Geek. I was trying to go to FYF Festival. I'm looking for Dodgers and Phillies tickets. And Seatkeek has been right there for me every step of the way. Everything about Seatkeek is designed to make life easier for you if you're sports or a music fan. With Seekkeek, you'll never need to waste time checking prices on other ticket sites. Seatkeek does that for you by pulling in all the tickets available on other

sites and puts them in one place so you save time and you never miss a deal. Personally, I just don't have time to look at every other spot to see what I'm trying to get here. I just need the one place that's like the clearinghouse that aggregates everything. It's perfect. Seatkeek wants to help you get the most bang for your book. That's why every ticket on Seatgeek is given a grade based on value and you'll immediately see any underpriced seat and be able to find the best deals that fit your budget. Best of all, watch listeners get a $20 rebate off their first Seekek purchase.

To get your $20 rebate on tickets, download the free Seatkeek app. Go to the Settings tab and click Add Up promo code and enter promo code Watch. Seek will send you $20 after you've made your first ticket purchase. Download the free Seek geek app and enter a promo code watch today. Also want to talk to you about me undies, whether you're wearing a suit or sweats you spend almost 24 hours a day in underwear. But instead of making a statement like Superman's tights on, under his everyday clothes, your underwear is probably boring.

Well, Mianti is here to change that. Every pair of Mianti's is made from sustainably sourced modal, a fabric that's twice as soft as cotton. Nothing can describe the fit and feel of Miondi's, but once you try them on, you'll understand why they're called the world's most comfortable underwear. And if you don't love your first pair of Miondi's, they're free, no questions asked. Miondi's has dozens of styles and limited edition prints to help you make a statement

with your underwear, whether anyone can see them or not. Remember, Superman. Shipping is free in U.S. and Canada, and you can save up to $8 with the Meandie subscription plan. Get the subscription or a single pair, and you can get 20% off your first order when you go to meundies.com slash watch. That's meundies.com slash watch for 20% off your first order.

Again, that's meundies.com W-A-T-C-H. Yeah, what's up? All right, let's talk about Blink 182. Yeah, I'm hyped to do this. I felt like you were a little slow, and then you got hyper than me. You got hyper than Tate talking about Uncle Buck on ABC. I got hyper than Tate's 15 aliases on Reddit slash Epps.

Listen. Listen. I want to make a couple of statements here. Yeah, you're coming in hot on this one. We both kind of... So Rob Harvilla wrote a piece on the ringer that's excellent about the new Blink record and about Blink in general. The new album's called California. You should go check out Rob's piece.

And then there was some Twitter talk last. yesterday like Donsky jumped on and he was like here are my top five Blink songs and I went in there and I was like here are my top five Blank songs which it's it's all open for debate man that's what it's all about on Twitter but the interesting thing is everybody who's like Carousel and damn it and Josie and all these songs on Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch and early Blink songs and I just want to let you guys know something I don't give a shit speak from the heart now speak your truth I don't give a shit about Dude Ranch and Cheshire Cat. I don't care because I am a 38 year old man and I wasn't really rocking with Blink like that back then. Blink got real when Blink went pop. Okay? When Blink sold

the F out. And I don't really even like Enema that much. I mean, there are some good songs on there. But real blink to me is take off your pants and jacket, the self-titled shit, and the masterwork. It's say it. Neighborhoods. And you can at me or dat me. I love. I love when you speak from the heart. You preach.

It's really true. Like a bunch of people, because I did my top five songs too, which weirdly were essentially the same as yours, which made me very happy. We just swapped out different neighborhoods tracks because that album is as deep as it is rich. Just like Tate.

That album is like the Colorado River. It just gets. gives life. It just gives. It's so, so free-flowing. The thing that shocked me, not shock me, because the world is younger, especially online than we are, but we were saying that we like these songs, and a bunch of people were jumping on and listening their five favorite blank songs, which is awesome. That was definitely the point. But they're also like, okay, I guess I got to go back to high school with this one. Okay, fine, I'll admit it. Middle school represent. I was like, okay, I was living in the same neighborhood I live in now, children,

Like, that was, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I don't know from that stuff, and I'm not mad at it. I think, I think, damn it especially is an amazing song. I think that's, that was my number two Blink song. But this, and, but it's important to foreground this by saying that the version of blink that we like is this kind of delicate, probably unsustainable, no, actually, obviously unsustainable balance between being petulant and braddy and then being regretful. and trying to be mature about being petuline and brady. And the fart joke blink, like, that's just, that's not my scene.

Like, that's not the kind of music that I like. I appreciate that they do it. And generally, that kind of music that takes the piss out of other music can often be better than very, very self-serious music. Yeah. I loved when they tried to do both because it was very... You can sort of feel the band fraying as these ideas they were trying to do it once were fraying.

And I think that's kind of... That was a very unique thing. Because Tom DeLong was like, aliens are fucking... and real. You know what I mean? So to be clear, the crazy thing about this band is that when they broke through with Enema of the State and they were on, they're on TRL and Pop Punk suddenly seemed like it was going to be a thing, they felt like veterans. Like, they'd been around for a minute because they basically started when they were teenagers. Yeah. And everyone points to the

self-titled record as... Cheshire Cat came out in 94, I think, right? Right. And people point to the self-titled record as like them being, there's, of mature album. But that was 03. And I think they're like a year older than us. So they were 27. They were not old. And so then they fell into this kind of weird fugue state and more or less broke up and then got back together for this album that they pretty much disavowed, which is neighborhoods.

And we're going to talk about neighborhoods. But just to bring people up to date who haven't been as deep in the blink world, the blink subreddit as you and I have. basically when Tom just decided to go full X-Files and left the band, Mark Hoppice and Travis Barker hooked up with a very simpatico choice. They hooked up with our man from the Alkaline Trio, Matt Skeeba. Yeah. Alcline Trio, by the way, if you like pop punk bands, I like a lot of Alkaline Trio records better than Blink Records.

And I want to say something for the record, too, which is that I think that this is, this gets to a pop punk. There's a schism, man. And the schism to me, there's lots of different kinds. Like, I will stay straight up. I think the best pop punk song is disconnected by face-to-face. And when I say pop punk, I mean... Did you say that to Joe House?

No. When I say pop-punk, I mean a very specific thing. I'm not talking about the undertones or, you know, like anything that the Ramones did or anything like that. I'm pretty much speaking, I don't know, like 90s on. let's just say that to be and I'm sure that's wrong but like just let's just say 90s on to whatever I'm what arbitrary date you want to put as the cap and then I think that you there's lots of different kinds there's like Midwestern punk like there's Dillinger 4 there's all these East Coast

bands and then when you have the West Coast stuff there's Southern California Thrashor San Diego thrashor magazine San Diego dude bra which is blink and then there's northern in California, which is more like Green Day and Jawbreaker, which aren't like that similar sonically, but in terms of their gloomier outlook, I think. I mean, everybody's sad. That's the sort of base point of everything. But Blink can't help but sounding like Teenage Fan Club on Adderall because of where they're from, I think. Whereas Green Day and Jawbreaker, I think, share a certain moroseness. Would you agree with that? I think that's well observed. I think that's well observed. I I would.

I think I want to, but I also think it's important to think about them within two traditions because there's the punk tradition which I want to circle back to, but generally the reason I am pro Blink 122, particularly why their greatest hits

is just straight contra flamethrower is because they're a pop band. You know, you said teenage fan club on Adderall, that's right. All the small things, which is a great song and was a big hit, the chorus of that song,

and I quote, goes, nah, nah, nah, nah, na, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, right? That's the chorus. There should be more songs like that on the radio. That's a good thing. That's just full stop, why they were good. They wrote pop hooks for days, and that was awesome. But if you think about them in sort of a punk tradition, they're particularly interesting because I think,

I'm going to go out on a muso limb here, my friend, because I feel comfortable on this tree with you. Sure, man. You know how people of our parents' generation, when they would get real deep in their, in their cabernets or whatever, and they would be like, the thing about the Beatles you don't understand is they represented the different pillars of humanity, the artist, the dreamer, the fool, you know what I mean?

Like super, like, who the, fuck said that? Like the New Republic pop music critic, like just stroking his chin beard and like talking about the role of Ringo. If you accept that that's the thing you could say about music, and you probably shouldn't, if you think about what made Blink pretty unique and interesting was the fact that all three of them represented essentially different traditions of contemporary punk music because Tom

Tom essentially invented an entire way of speaking and singing that everyone from Avril Levine to everybody who's still putting demos on Myspace if they probably shouldn't because I think their information has been corrupted by malware at this point but like basically

not a lot of uniques on my space right now if you basically if you take the word F-I-N-E and you say foin like that's Tom like he found a way to stretch the language that is absurd, but somehow emotionally satisfying. But he was out there on that certain.

They call it high mall rat. Right? Yeah, high mall rat. That's wonderful. So you take that high, that sort of acidic, sour, you know, basically spit, spitball's a teacher kind of wine that he brought to it. And then the thing about hoppus is that he just, he's just caught in his feelings, man.

He's so earnest that even his songs about prank calling people sound like, like, they sound like sonnets that you scribbling your trapper keeper in middle school, he can't help himself. So he has that dower note. And then the thing about what Travis Barker was is that Travis Barker is super into being a musician, which I find crazy boring. I remember seeing them on tour when they were on tour with Green Day, which is circling back to a point I know you want to make in 03. And I think I was there because I think dashboard was opening for both of them.

So I was on tour with them for a couple days in the Southwest. And, you know, the high point of the blink set was when Travis Travis Barker's drum kit rotated and he was drumming on it. And it's just like, okay, if we're really doing drum solos in 03, we're in an interesting place or in 02. You're exactly right. There's this idea. All three of those chains, all three of those ideas don't, are there three separate strands. And when they were yoke together, it was awkward, uncomfortable at times, but it was fascinating.

I would actually argue that they transcended their own individual, like, profiles. This idea that Mark, who, yes, sang these really emo sweet songs, but. as soon as the song would move over would be like fart joke you know and then

would just be like my dick hurts and then you know Tom would sing beautiful stuff and then he would be

like info wars and Barker like you can always tell the Barker track like like when they were in the studio

and Barker was like I need to do a fill here the songs that start out with like a lot of Tom work oh yeah and you're like

like I mean Tom the drum not Tom DeLong and you know all of those things were obstacles to these guys being as good as they are. It is almost absurd that they are this good.

Can I say, I remember in 2004 MTV tried to launch a magazine, which, you know, that's really reading the market right, Viacom. But I was writing for them, and I remember I wrote this piece on, you know, crossover between like rock and politics, which a piece I also wrote for spin, I think. And I just remember, like, one of the paragraphs was like, Tom DeLong steps off the jet. his lip ring glistening in the sun, he throws his arm around Senator John Kerry.

The future has arrived. Can you imagine a world where we're just like, Tom DeLong, cultural ambassador for presidential candidate John Kerry? That seems like I'm talking about the stage coaches. I basically just like read a description from Deadwood. But yeah, those three elements. What do you think the saddest version of that is? Is it like, is it like the lead singer?

of the gin blossoms looked at the John Edwards presidential poster and said that man's going to be the leader of the free world someday. No, no. It's just like the dude from Five for Fighting plays the last plangent chords of Superman and it's like, ladies and gentlemen, Dick Gephart. The next president of the United States.

There's a lot of this shit. But I really felt like it in considering two things, considering why the new album, which is just way too long, I think that's the biggest problem with it, but why it's not particularly good despite Skiba

contributing some nice songs and Hopas doing the hopest things that he that he does. And I'm glad that they're still touring. That's fine. But maybe it's because I'm very sentimental about New York right now because I'm leaving it.

But I was getting deep in this like food metaphor of like the bagel and the cream cheese and the locks. And like you take each one of those things out, it's kind of not as good as it is when it's all together. You know what I mean? Like they kind of work best together. And because of that, forget that I said the bagel thing immediately,

but we think the best album, the best albums for sure were the self-titled and neighborhoods because they were actively trying to pull apart, but there was some centrifugal force that was drawing them together. And so when people were like, why do you and Chris or both think feeling this, which is the single from the self-titled is their best song, it's because that is a song in which all three of them should be. Who could even ask that question? But I'm saying that if you listen to that song,

all three members of the band seem to be actively at war with each other playing three different songs. And then all of a sudden at the end, they lock in, and it's like three choruses at once, and it's mind-blowing. That song, that's a hype song. I mean, I love it. It makes me crazy. And you don't get many of those, but they had more than most.

I want to make another statement about a public. Ooh, I love when he makes statements. Let me see if you agree with this. Okay. So Blink 182 greater than symbol Green Day. Mm. But Duky greater than symbol any Blink 182 album. Yeah, I think...

I think that's right. I think that's right. I think the one place... Like, I think that Blink 182 has like a 20 song greatest hits. But Green Day has the best album. Yeah, I think that's right. The one... My one counter would be when Green Day disappeared up their own asses and got grandiose,

it generally was just like them trying to write a Kinks album about politics. Like they would go in a very bombastic pop direction, whereas I think the worst blink songs are, and people are going to probably kill me for this, but like, because some people love these songs, but Adam's song and stay together for the kids. Wow. I'm like, nah. Holy shit, Greenwald. Did you just say Adam's song and stay together from the kids are the worst?

those aren't their worst songs. They have many worse songs, but I'm saying of like the canon songs, I feel like those are the least interesting to me because the directions they go into those songs, I'm like, I know why they were trying to do it, but those don't, those do nothing for me. They do nothing for me.

Don't stay together for the kids. Break up. Follow your bliss. Follow your bliss. Wait, let's, the Green Day point. And it's funny, you mention that because they were touring together when I saw them, which was kind of interesting. And it seemed a little bit, not that they didn't get along,

but as a pairing, it seemed to make almost too much sense. Green Day was riding very, very high off American Idiot, and Blink were building up towards the self-titled record. But their fan bases should have overlap, but I'm not sure if they did. I'm not sure if they did. And maybe it's just as simple as pavement saying, it's the two states divide.

It's very different traditions. Northern Southern California. Yeah, I know. I mean, I'm trying to say, what would you say, we did our top fives on Twitter, but what would you, redo yours? What are your favorites? My favorite is feeling this.

And then, and then damn it. And then I think I might get my own order wrong, but all the small things. And, oh, love is dangerous. The last track on neighborhoods. We got to clear out the lane for five minutes on neighborhoods after we do our top five. And then I put down, which you did too, which is a deeper cut.

I did too. And I want to take, I, Meyer is feeling this damn it goes on the dance floor, which is from neighborhoods, man overboard and down. And I want to take man overboard off and put roller coaster on. Nice. Good choice. Man overboard, I could take or leave. I feel like, you know, you want to know what neighborhoods is for me, even though it came out in 2011, is it's the last great corporate alt-rock record.

which we used to really and corporate alt rock like that's not a real thing and that could count as anything from like the the second big wallflowers album to we were big on that

yo man sleepwalker um help me out what's another one like what's another one like razor blade suitcase or something razor blade suitcase that would be uh

the STP record was inerson with interstate. Yeah. It's like that kind of complete, that armor all buff on top of like these signifiers that should be punk or should be some sort of alternative rock. So it's like the Scruffy, the band that Scruffy in concert,

they hire like Tom Lord Alge to like master the shit out of it. And so it just sounds like gold even with what they're playing is bronze. Uh-huh. You agree with that? I love that stuff. Yeah. And it's funny because it, in a different era, maybe it would have registered as that.

It would have registered. Here's the thing. In my memory of 2011, which is admittedly hazy, it didn't register at all. I think people were psyched that they were back together and talking after the plus Mark had Travis had plus 44 and Tom had Angels and Airwaves, which, by the way, that we should just do an hour and a half on that grandiose insanity at some point. On the movie that Angels and Airwaves got to make? Oh, my God.

That was so crazy, dude. What was that called? But they got back together, but I just felt like it didn't register at all. And the thing is, I love, that album is definitely top to bottom tighter than the self-title. I'm not saying the highs are as high, and there's no Robert Smith cameo on track 11. But it's just good pop punk songwriting with this real melancholy shot through it. And you're right, it's super, it's buffed, and it sounds really rich to the point where a song, which has the ludicrous title, love is dangerous somehow communicate something emotional to me, even though if you really

listen to what he's saying, it probably, it probably belongs on like a seaside of an Angels and Airwaves album. Can I read you the names of the Angels and Airwaves albums? I'm so excited. Wasn't one called Love? 2006 we got, we don't need to whisper. Okay. Like that's, that was very, oh six emo.

That was, do you remember they released? That wasn't really the thing then, but they released a trailer for that album. And I remember that the only thing was like a car driving in the desert. And it was just the only thing that you heard was just the peeling church bell guitar chimes lifted directly and shamelessly from the edge. And I was like in. I like everything about this. Totally in. They follow that up in 2007 with I Empire, like as in iPhone.

Yeah. It's just too good. They put out love. And they come right back in 2011 with Love Part 2. Yes. You can't have love with that love part two. They leave us for three years and they come back in 14 with fucking Dreamwalker. That's amazing. Like one of the things that was fun about being a music critic for a while other than not getting paid and being disrespected by everybody was the fact that you could have sometimes have a platform to be like, yo, like,

this thing that was made fun of in its time is actually great. And sometimes, you know, popular opinion will change on something. Like, Flewwood Max Tusk, probably my favorite album of all time, derided it when it was released because of what it wasn't as opposed to what it is. And all I'm saying is some brave traveler, not now, maybe when the spaceships actually come in six to 12 months needs to, we're ready. We're ready for the Angels and Airwaves piece to be like, guess what? Like this dude's frequency, no shots of Dennis Quaid, like he's tuned into the real frequency. Yeah, right? Yeah, man. We're ready for that.

All right. So they made neighborhoods. And then they were like, whoops, sorry, we caught an L on that. And they released a really good EP, really, really good if you edit up in the Yellow Wolf. You got to edit out the Yellow Wolf guest verse. But other than that, dogs eating dogs is fire. California, you know, I like albums called California. I like it.

but it's like some of this this first song is good cynical's good bored to death is good it's not quite great but you know basically the takeaway from this conversation I think is it's okay that some bands are not built to last and this band in whatever form it is I don't think was but it's a hell of a run man the songs will last the songs certainly do all right man uh great talking to you we'll be back on Monday

and uh everybody watched night of everybody listen to take off your pants and jacket my name is Chris Ryan. Take off your pants at Jag and Baransky.