Monday, May 22, 2006

I liked blink-182. I mean, the band, yeah, but the self-titled record especially. It was a great foray into some darker post-punk stuff, clever and moody, but restrained by pop sensibility.

Angels And Airwaves is one of those things. Tom Delonge's new band attempts to craft some darker post-punk, but it lacks the cleverness of b182's swan song - and has no restraint behind it (for the time being, the album is free for streaming on MySpace, so I have in fact listened to the damn thing). As well, Delonge's voice is woefully unsuited for this; his nasal meandering draws significantly away from the mood of the music - which is almost comically over-dramatic as is, awash in ridiculously outdated 1980's studio effects - and insteaed makes you laugh at the juxtaposition. Mark Hoppus' voice was one of reason in blink-182, I guess. Not only did the latter-era blink songs involving him sound more concise, focused, and fun, they were also poppier. And his voice suited the music better, as plaintive as Delonge's but less self-important, just a sturdy baritone-tenor that, in retrospect, was a strong anchor for the tunes.

Without this anchor - and without Travis Barker's energetic presence (and overrated drumming, yeah) - Delonge has instead puffed his ego up to gargantuan size, creating an album that begins to drag heavily before the third track has even finished. "The Adventure" is a reprieve, sure, but a brief one, and its flaws glare. With the exception of the very familiar-sounding hook, the song lacks anything that you can move to or feel - either the percussion is overprocessed and heavy, dragging the song down, or it's over-snared, removing anything resembling a danceable beat, which was a significant factor in the popularity of the albums Delonge wants to emulate. Combined with a downbeat bridge that lasts at least a minute and a half before breaking out into a spacey nothing of a coda - and a positively ridiculous music video - the integrity of the song as a particularly memorable lead single becomes suspect.

Of course, immediately after that, the album drops right back into its old routine, i.e. dropping clunky melodrama on your face. The fifth track is barely there; the next track has him shouting something over and over and over and over again and again and again and you just want him to stop, over top of something that would like to legitimately rock out but in context comes across as terribly strained. And so the album goes, track by track, til it reaches its logical conclusion: an over-eager, plaintive repetition at the close of the final song. Moreso than any blink stuff, the entire album bears a grimy sameness, contributing to the ruin of its impact.

A little research brings up this great AllMusic article, discussing Delonge's outlandish claims of the potential of this album to change the world (the world, mind you, the entire thing - not overambitious at all) and... well, just read the quote:

"The simple fact is that musicians don't get to choose the legacy they leave behind; once music is released, fans inherently latch onto the songs that hit them at that right moment during that particular time in their lives."

Too true, and when an artist sets out to craft an enormous statement to reinvent not only themselves, but an entire planet, they're inevitably destined to fail. The greatest world-changing albums were not supposed to readjust the planet's rotation, they were just albums that happened to resonate with an enormous audience. With Angels And Airwaves, Delonge hasn't created so much the music he's wanted to make as the music he wants to make change. And you just can't force that.


Sorry for making my first in-depth post in a while very serious and overly music-related. If this helps, there was an improv hang last night, and it was a pretty damn good time (as they usually are). Hopefully next time EVERYONE will be able to show up!

posted by John @ 11:07 AM.