“DO YOU like Blink-182?”
The answer to this question demands another question. Are you asking 10-year-old me, or current me? Either way, the answer is, “Um... yeah, duh,” but for vastly different reasons.
Ten-year-old me adored Blink-182 because, well, I was 10. I had no context for their idiotic lyrics and predictable, pre-packaged angst when I was introduced to them in the era of 1999’s Enema of the State. In fact, I didn’t know what an enema was. Ten-year-old me was drinking off-brand Pepsi and bouncing along to “All the Small Things,” as the spastic trio impersonated the silk-shirt-clad boy bands I loved just as much.
When Take Off Your Pants and Jacket came out in 2001 I was primed and ready to be the girl at “The Rock Show,” and begged my parents to let me go see them on the Warped Tour. I was a pre-teen living in rural Oregon, but I bought a pair of green and pink Converse All Stars and wore them even when it snowed.