Enema Of The State

I like it

Puerile and funny!

Another Blink submission from a user? Why does this band have such an intense chokehold on people in my age bracket? I'll never understand. They have some good funny tunes, the singles are solid. But they're not revolutionary or awe-inspiring in any way. I will say though, that I think this album should be the one included in the original list to best represent the band. Dude Ranch sucks. This is the album that cemented these goofs as a permanent fixture in the pop rock realm.

Half of the album is kind of good

Catchy, energetic and fun, with a strong pop sensibility. A bit lyrically juvenile for my tastes and I'm not a fan of the vocals, but "All the Small Things" is a classic.

Really enjoyable, albeit slightly juvenile, power pop. Hardly any hardcore punk and so much sleeker and more radio-friendly than, say, Green Day’s “Dookie” or Offspring or Sum…

There was a blink-182 album on the official list and I feel like that was a sufficient amount. Why not pony up some less mainstream post punk material, something in the vein of Operation Ivy or Bad Religion I hadn't heard of already? Aside from that I certainly don't hate this - musically it is very adept, the lyrics are serviceable if not particularly deep. A surprising amount of it is pretty standard love or breakup songs, and the title and cover photo are kind of the edgiest thing about it.

This music is just not something I know how to appreciate LOL. I personally just can’t really see the talent. I mean I’m not offended by this but just wouldn’t listen again.

To be fair, these guys are really good at what they do and I'm familiar with a few of these cuts. I just really dislike virtually every aspect of it. No point in nitpicking and trying to convince the 3 people that read this why I don't like it, just that most of this entire genre is just eye-rolling to me even if this was so big it really should be in the book. 4/10 2 stars IMO: Belonged in the book? yes.

Baby food punk, the Wiggles have more raw energy

A couple things bother me about this album. Much of the time, the drums are a constant metronome at the forefront of the mix. It’s not so much Travis Barker, but the punk pop genre. And the vocals sound like a teenager in the basement whining at his mom to make him a grilled cheese. When in reality it’s a dude in his mid 20s perfectly capable of melting cheese on bread in a buttered pan his damn self. Adam’s Song is amazing though. The drums are present but in a supporting role. Moreover, the vocals don’t sound whiny, but rather like loneliness oozing through the speakers earned from months and months on the road away from home.

blink-182 makes me think of the lyrics to Zappa's "Tinseltown Rebellion": But then they took some guy's advice To get a record deal, he said They would have to be more punk Forget their chops and play real dumb Or else they would be sunk The songs just feel... dumb. And I could go my whole life without hearing "All The Small Things." NEXT. Top songs: "Dumpweed," "What's My Age Again?"

I'm not one to say pop punk is necessarily a betrayal of punk overall. But it has to be done right -- which means that a genuine punk spirit needs to be found there, with the minimum amount of transgression required to challenge an audience. And the pop elements must *also* be worthy of your time -- you got to have truly memorable hooks offering some welcome dynamics somehow, so as to not repeat the same sort of dross again and again. Heck, I love Green Day's *Dookie*, so I know bands can pull this sort of thing off with the right set of skills. What about blink-182 circa-*Enema of the State*, then? Are they both 'good punk' and 'good pop'? This LP is supposedly their magnum opus, emblematic of a specific moment in late-'90s/early-2000s music culture, after all... As far as punk transgression is concerned, you can put it in a nutshell thanks to that final line in opener "Dumpweed": "I need a girl that I can train". Eyeroll. Well, blink-182, good job for catching the incel spirit a decade before the word even existed! Not really what I call 'punk transgression' in my book, but I guess that's a way to represent the effect of raging hormones in a male teenager's body, and how said effect feels harder to go through when you're the odd one out living in the damn suburbs. That said, this doesn't change the fact you have to be a f*cking idiot to sing along to this song, whether then or now. Of course, I'm aware that there are layers of (self-)irony aimed at boys elsewhere in the album. But it's just that those layers are not particularly witty either. In an excerpt from *Enema of the State*’s 2000 tour booklet, lead singer Tom DeLonge actually had to explain the meaning of “Dumpweed,” stating: "Girls are so much smarter than guys and can see the future as well as never forget the past. So that leaves the dog as the only thing men are smarter than." Now that's a hilarious statement, and I'm left wondering why on earth Tom never thought of inserting such sharp one-liners in his lyrics -- lyrics that are on the contrary either vague, hackneyed or ham-fisted overall. Looks like the guy can be genuinely funny. The thing is, he was probably too lazy and complacent to ever bother about what he actually sings. Well, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong or NOFX's Fat Mike certainly ain't lazy like that. What about the pop parts in the blink-182 formula then? Let's just say that the hooks are not that catchy to my ears, the chord sequences clone each other so fast it feels you're stuck inside a top secret Big Pharma laboratory, and even worse, the vocal lines, themselves cloned on an assembly line, are so goddamn... flat. While a lot of people hear something "bratty" in those vocals, I just perceive the latter as innocuous and devoid of any real flavor. Can you hear that as well? Consequently, I never could understand blink-182's commercial success. It makes me feel like the -- at the time -- young, en masse target audience for pop-punk just had awful music tastes. And it's something I refuse to believe to this day, in spite of said success. It's just mind-boggling for me. To be clear, the problem with this album is not that it should be groundbreaking or deep -- it would indeed be a little foolish to expect such depth from Tom, Mark and Travis, whose main goal is obviously to stick to their formula as much as they can. No, the *real* problem is that there were tons of better bands in that genre out there during the late nineties, doing this kind of thing with more bite and imagination, even as they stayed within the constraints of pop-punk or "skate-punk". Whether musically or lyrically, *Punk In Drublic*-era NOFX just wiped the floor with blink's daft, harmless tunes, just to take one example. And for a lot of people aware of that scene during the nineties, it was therefore a little difficult buying into blink's shtick when it broke out. Add the processed vocals and streamlined-to-a-fault production values (to make pop-punk palatable for general audiences, Jerry Finn had certainly done a much more subtle job six years earlier on *Dookie* -- and it's not the discreet addition of organ and synths here and there on *Enema Of The State* that can redeem that "streamlined" effect), and what you have here is a record clearly favoring style over substance. *This* here is what feels like a betrayal of punk for me, period. With all that in mind, *Enema Of The State* is still objectively a far better and more cohesive album than the later blink-182 LP suggested on the users list. Two massive singles surely gave it rocket fuel, one of whom ("What's My Age Again?) I still find extremely boring, with the other being quite alright ("All The Small Things", with its goofy surf-rock-adjacent "na-na-na" hook and subtle synth flourishes in the background). And I also like "Adam's Song". The chords, instrumentation and arrangements in it are not particularly original, but something happens there vocally and lyrically that makes that one stand out from the pack. I guess it's what a listener can expect from a good pop song, right? Plus, you can sense that the band members were (secretly) fans of The Cure at the time when you listen to that one -- just as they adapted Robert Smith's formula into a sunny-drenched, major-mode, California-friendly translation. It's very subliminal, of course. But the rest is just a borefest for me. Just not essential, in spite of its commercial success. *2* for cultural impact, maybe. And that feels generous. 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes: 5 for the musicianship and "professional" production values + 1.5/5 for the.artistry + a 0.5 bonus for cultural impact. Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 48 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 61 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 112 (including this one) --- Hey, Émile. J'ai enfin trouvé le temps de répondre ! Regarde sous la review de *Young, Loud And Snotty* des Dead Boys !

I feel the same way about this as the other blink-182 album that was user submitted (was there collusion???). I just don't care for it. The singer sounds like a 14 year old whiny brat. I'll even go so far as to offer another unpopular opinion - although I like punk and I like power pop, "pop-punk" is a crappy genre of music. It's a good album cover though, I'll give them that. 2 stars.

If you didn't grow up with this joke of a band in the late 90's, there's a slim chance it'll appeal to you, if you did grow up hearing this nonsense, do the world a favor and keep your miserable memories to yourself!

Simply awful

Sorry No 1