Educating Omand - blink-182

In an effort to further her musical education, Susan Omand has been set "homework" of listening to albums released after the 1980s that she has missed out on. This time it's blink-182's album Enema of the State...



See the full list of Educating Omand albums



Ahh the 1812, one of Tchaikovsky’s finest, although much mocked, overtures from the use of a Russian Orthodox liturgical hymn at the start to the final flourish of cathedral bells and cannon as percussion in the... what? Not 1812? Ohhh, blink-182. I see.



Hang on, I’ve heard of one of the songs on this album, which we will get to shortly. Talking of short, that’s the first thing I notice. This whole album is only 35 minutes long – for 12 songs? I could only play the 1812 twice in that length of time... but I digress.



I set out to do a track-by-track style review of the album, however I quickly realised that this band has “a sound” which basically distils down to the fact you’d have a decent thrash metal album if you dirtied up the guitars and let a grown up sing instead of a preppy frat boy. OK, that’s harsh but you know what I mean. The speed drumwork throughout the album is truly awe-inspiring though so I did a bit of research and found that this was the first album which featured Travis Barker on percussion which explains a lot. I also turned up the fact that it was produced by Jerry Finn, who worked on Green Day’s Dookie album and I can definitely hear the similarities – whether or not this is a good thing I will reserve judgement for now, because I can also hear similarities to McFly in the track Party Song (don’t ask how I know this) and can’t get past the fact that Dumpweed sounds like a mashup of All the Small Things with the Friends theme tune (seriously listen to the intro here, it does! I can’t unhear that now.) Talking of All the Small Things, that’s the song I had heard before but that’s because it was used in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer way back in the day.



Favourite lyric on the album has come from Dysentery Gary – any song that can work in the phrase “He’s a f***ing weasel” has to be worth something – but my favourite track on the album is Adam’s Song, partly for the crispness and definition of the guitars, which actually works here as the song is slower than the others, partly for the very neat segue into All the Small Things on the album but mostly for the totally unexpected piano, which I found to be utterly wonderful and a moment that made me smile.



So yes, a cool album and one that I’ll probably choose to listen to again in future, although I don’t know if I’d go looking for more by the band as they seem a bit samey, all things considered. However, this time I’ll bow to superior knowledge and you can consider me educated... this time.







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