July 16, 2011 editorial: comments

Dear Fellow Audiofanziners!

The new Blink 182 single "Up All Night" was released this week.  It is the band's first single in 9 years, during which each member pursued their own musical project.  The single is a sneak peak if you will for the upcoming album which should be released sometime during Blink 182's summer tour.

Reviews and opinions on the new single are mixed but they fall into 2 camps basically.  The first, "Blink is back and I love it" and the second, "Bring back the old Blink, there are too many effects in this production".  As a fan, when your band has been "offline" for a while, you dread their comeback album.  You are afraid to find some 'mature' watered down or overproduced version of the band that you love.  But whether you like it or not, like you, with time, people change and grow.  Music writing is a reflection of one's skills and life experiences both of which change with time.  You cannot expect 40 year olds to be singing about being in high school, and noo! noo! noo! if they do.

So back to the single.  What do I think then?  In general, I fall into the first camp.  I am glad Blink 182 is back and still finds the passion to play and write music together.  It's not easy.  In Up All Night you can definitely hear the influences from the different musical projects each member pursued.  But that's not a bad thing.  Artists need to grow and experiment otherwise they keep churning out the same old stuff.

Now on the subject of effects and production.  I cringe every time I hear someone criticize a band for using effects.  Knowing how and when to use effects properly is a whole new can of worms.  It is an art form by itself!  If you listen to the spacey intro in Up All Night which then smacks into distorted guitar- it's a good dynamic.  The vocals are still Blink 182 vocals just a little bit more polished and bright.  Nothing wrong with that.  So there, this is my 2 cents review of the single.

Of course, us here at Audiofanzine here we are big advocates of all kinds of effects and gadgets.  Check out our latest review on the AVID Mbox Pro 3 and Craig Anderton's Vocals Processing Tips: Part 2.

Have a good weekend!

Chater-La