10th September 2015
Of course Blink-182 had to be covered for a Throwback Thursday review, but how could one album be picked over any of the others? With all of Blink's albums filled to the brim with greatness, we'll rewind back to 2005 and their Greatest Hits, a collection of the cream of the crop. As the name suggests, the greatest hits that Blink had to offer!
In February of 2005, Blink-182 had announced an "indefinite hiatus." In other words, they broke up, and the pop-punk world mourned for what could have been an end to an era. Then, in October of the same year, we were treated by the good folks over at Geffen Records to the swansong that was Greatest Hits. Back to back hit, placed in a perfect order, opening up with the amazing 'Carousel' (Cheshire Cat version though, not Buddha), and ending with (UK Version) a BBC1 session of 'Go', and seeing as this could have been the last album Blink released (at the time the tension between the Barker-Hoppus camp and the DeLonge one were similar to the Cold War), it was completely justifiable to listen to Greatest Hits on repeat, night and day, all week long. There may have been other albums released in the following months, but they were OTHER bands. They weren't Blink, and that's all that mattered at the time.
For me, personally, 2005 was a strange year. I'd turned 13 and so had begun the emotional trauma that was the teenage years of secondary school. As well as this, 2005 was also the year my parents divorced, followed by the arguments that this brings to any household. Blink-182 and their Greatest Hits was the perfect remedy, the ideal medicine for a teenager at this time, dotted with tracks covering all the bases that any teenager has to deal with, for anyone that feels like an outsider. There was always a Blink song for it.
Jumping forward a few months now to May 2006, and Tom DeLonge's new band Angels & Airwaves released their debut album We Don't Need to Whisper, and, I think I speak for a lot of people here, I was going to boycott this album, this band. With the feud between Barker-Hoppus and DeLonge starting to feel like on its own, this felt like the new equivalent of meeting your dad's new girlfriend, time to crank the volume of Greatest Hits up a little louder. Looking back, it seems silly to boycott Angels & Airwaves for so long, they were and still are an amazing band! But hey, that's teenagers for you!
Obviously years later Blink-182 did reunite for 2011's Neighborhoods, bringing with it a maturity to the band, a trait DeLonge seemed to have brought with him from Angels & Airwaves, before the inevitable second break up. In that time between break up and reconcile however, it was all Greatest Hits (of course the other albums feature too, how could they not!). Other bands made appearances, and some questionable genre choices were made, but none of them had anything on Blink.
It's now 2015 and almost exactly 10 years have past since Greatest Hits came out. The music scene has changed a lot; pop-punk has matured as a genre with more serious lyrics involved, no more songs about receiving blow jobs or the neighbour Bob doing the dirty with a dog. Yes, it has changed a lot in 10 years, but at the same time it hasn't. Blink still speaks to a lot of people, they never really left our hearts, and Greatest Hits still has a permanent home in my car's CD player.
5/5
Tracks to check out:
It's Blink-182, go check out every song!
Sam Muckley
@s_muckley
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