This ran in the February 19th, 2009, issue of the Daily Northwestern’s culture section, The Weekly. The full version can be found here.

01.
I’ve gotten hungry, real hungry for my youth because the job market sucks, school is a bummer and, even though it’s infantile, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to spend a day when I was 10, 14 or 18, when I had “not a care in the world” and “there seemed to be no troubles ahead,” bland platitudes we reminisce about, forgetting that life sucked then in the same ways it sucks now, and no matter where or when you are, there’s going to be something to whine about. In spite of this, wouldn’t it be nice? To see old friends long passed out of our circles, to watch TV shows that hadn’t yet been canceled, to idle in general art and P.E., to lack that self-awareness that led us to try new things and break out of our local bubble. I’m not suggesting ignorance was bliss, because ignorant is ignorance. But still…

Two Sundays ago, at the Grammy Awards, blink-182 called off their five-year hiatus and officially reunited before a mostly apathetic crowd, judging from the lack of applause, surprise, or even a schlocky standing ovation when Mark Hoppus awkwardly hunched over the microphone and monotonously intoned, “Blink-182 is back!” Privately, I’ve been anticipating this since last summer, when I wrote a throwaway line in an article for my internship at Newcity calling for the reunion. When Travis Barker almost died in that plane crash last fall, I said to a friend, “Maybe the guys will figure out that life is just too short to not have blink-182,” without a trace of irony. At the Grammys, after message board speculation that got the Internet rumor mill grinding away, it happened, and a cheery wave of nostalgic giddiness washed over me when I found out the news while at work. I burst into the lounge where my co-workers were sitting and yelled out loud, “Blink-182 is fucking back!” and was met with silence.

Blink’s reunion is the first superstar ’90s band get-together fueled by altruistically nostalgic reasons; listening to them on stage and reading their website message, it sounds like the guys just want to make some music and play for their fans again. When Rage Against the Machine got back together for Coachella, they seemed motivated by a real desire to change the world again, not just to make music. As they hit the reunion tour circuit, marked by a semi-disastrous outing at Lollapalooza last year, it seemed like a lot of people still weren’t getting it, choosing instead to mosh and slamdance their problems away instead of addressing them. While an over-serious rap-metal band probably can’t get us to change our views on life, a joyful pop-punk band can at least take us back to a day in our youth when all we cared about was loitering with our friends, drinking Slurpees from 7-11 and dreading the return to school on Monday. Does this sound idealistic? Does this sound romantic? Does it sound made up? It happened to me, my friends and hundreds of other kids I know; that’s right, at some point, we weren’t studying for midterms and worrying about getting a job after graduation. We were still sort of living in the moment. That’s what blink-182’s reunion can do for us.

02.
Objectively, blink-182 is pretty shitty. You see, they mostly play power chords, and their song structures are pretty similar (seriously, “First Date” and “The Rock Show” are the same goddamn song). Furthermore, their lack of lyrical sophistication leads to a lot of thematic repetition, most egregious when … snore, sorry, what the hell was I saying? Who gives a shit? Here’s something to do: Think of everyone you know who is complaining about how blink-182 sucks and how their reunion is horrible for the world and stop being friends with them. The horrible truth about blink-182: They’re three funny guys who commercialized an already commercial style of music (all the early punk bands were on major labels; the line between “true” and “fake” punk is blurry). Sure, a lot of their fans never got into the Clash or Black Flag, but not everyone who watched Kill Bill got into Kurosawa or Leone or any of the directors Tarantino was ripping off (or paying “homage” to, if you’re an apologist). You weren’t listening to their records to experience new perspectives on art and politics; you were listening to them because you were 13 and didn’t know how to express how to be 13. What does it say about three grown men who chose to make music for pre-teens? That they were smart businessmen, or at the very least, in it for benevolent reasons. The blink guys weren’t just messing around with music; they covered “Another Girl Another Planet” by the Only Ones, they cited Descendents and The Cure as major influences, and that’s really all I need to know that they had more than a passing interest in music. All things considered, a self-aware group making fun music that had a lot of personal meaning for an impressionable crowd is not a crime; Limp Bizkit reuniting, now that’s a crime.

(Continued.)