Enema Of The State

Description

Enema of The State was released on June 1, 1999. Produced by Jerry Finn (who had notably worked with Rancid and Green Day), this album would become their best-seller. Led by the singles “Dumpweed,” “What’s My Age Again?,” “Adam’s Song” and “All The Small Things,” Enema of The State would sell 16 million copies worldwide, including more than 310,000 in France. Compared with the previous Dude Ranch, this third album by the Californians marked their entry into the real music industry, with a signing to a major label (MCA Records), but also the arrival of a new drummer, Travis Barker. What’s new with blink-182? Not that much: this band has never been very concerned with its image and claims spontaneity and a thoroughly punk musical continuity. So we find our three boys fond of quirky punk rock again (with a surprise guest, porn actress Janine Lindemulder on the cover!), delivering twelve teenage punk anthems, but always with that disconcerting ease and outstanding melodic sense. On Enema of The State, however, the production is more refined, and while the saturated guitars are still very much present, the arrangements (recurring keyboards) sometimes have more to do with pop than with basic California punk. But blink-182’s real strength is being a deceptive band: far less stupid than they try to look, Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker are capable —and in the finest possible way— of offering songs with serious and melancholic themes (teenage suicide on the very moving “Adam’s Song”), or the emptiness of time passing (on the very effective “What’s My Age Again?”). Humor and self-mockery are of course not left out (“All The Small Things,” “The Party Song”). blink-182 here has its best-selling album, and their potential likability at its peak at that point in their career is surely no small part of it.