Music / blink-182

L-R: Tom DeLonge, Travis Barker, Mark Hoppus

Influences: Green Day, NOFX, Dead Kennedys, Nirvana, Screeching Weasel, Descendents, Lagwagon, The Cure.

Related Acts:

• +44 (Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker)
• Angels & Airwaves (Tom De Longe)
• The Aquabats! (Barker)
• Box Car Racer (De Longe and Barker)
• Transplants (Barker)
• Alkaline Trio (Matt Skiba)

Always, I know,
you'll be at my show,
watching, waiting,
commiserating.

— "All The Small Things"

Blink-182 (stylized as blink-182) is a three-piece pop punk band from Poway, California. The band was formed in 1992 by Tom DeLonge (vocals/guitar), Mark Hoppus (vocals/bass) and Scott Raynor (drums) under the name Blink, eventually adding the hyphen and 182^note Just a random number that the band decided on; contrary to popular belief, it's not the number of times that Al Pacino says the word "fuck" in Scarface after being threatened with a lawsuit from an Irish pop rock band also named Blink.

After releasing their first two studio albums, Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch, Raynor left the band in 1998 and was replaced by the iconic Travis Barker (a.k.a. the guy with the tattoos who survived that plane crash), with whom they would release their mainstream breakthrough album Enema of the State in 1999, followed by further success in Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and Blink-182. DeLonge left the group early in 2005, putting the band on hiatus until 2009, when they got back together "for real", according to them (due to Travis surviving said plane crash). After releasing their comeback album Neighborhoods in 2011, the band celebrated their 20th anniversary the following year, during which they also released the EP Dogs Eating Dogs. Their sound by then was a mixture of the traditional blink sound and various elements of the groups they formed during their hiatus.

As of 2015, Tom DeLonge was "confirmed" by his bandmates to have left the group again, citing reasons to focus on other projects. The confirmation and the aftermath of it was... messy, to say the least. After months of shoving in and promoting him, Mark and Travis announced that Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio would be their new guitarist, with whom they recorded and released the albums California and Nine (with a deluxe edition of the former being released between the two). Their sound now is influenced by more modern pop punk as well as taking cues from both Alkaline Trio and older blink.

In October 2022, DeLonge rejoined the band, to which they released the non-album single "Edging." About a year later, on October 20, 2023, they released their first album since DeLonge's return, titled One More Time... (which features the aforementioned "Edging").

On lyrical terms, the band is historically known for their gross-out and sexual sense of humor, which they use for stage banter, and occasionally is featured in their songs. While this aesthetic was very prominent at the time of their earlier albums (sans for a few more serious songs), they eventually left it for the most part with Blink-182, which had a serious, emo-oriented style. Their current output since Neighborhoods is arguably an in-between for those two orientations.

Band Members (founding members in bold):

• Tom DeLonge: Vocals, guitar (1992-2005, 2009-2015, 2022-present)
• Mark Hoppus: Vocals, bass (1992-2005, 2009-present)
• Scott Raynor: Drums, percussion (1992-1998)
• Travis Barker: Drums, percussion (1998-2005, 2009-present)
• Matt Skiba: Vocals, guitar (2015-2022)

Discography:

Studio albums

• Cheshire Cat (1995)
• Dude Ranch (1997)
• Enema of the State (1999)
• Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001)
• Blink-182^note The way this album is referred to is split between a Self-Titled Album or an untitled one. (2003)
• Neighborhoods (2011)
• California (2016; deluxe edition in 2017)
• Nine (2019)
• One More Time... (2023)

Other notable releases

• Buddha (1994; demo album)^note Since around the time of Nine's release, the band considers this to be their first studio album (likely because it was their first commercial release), hence the former album's title since it would be the ninth one that way.
• They Came to Conquer... Uranus (1996; EP)
• The Mark, Tom and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!) (2000; Live Album)
• Greatest Hits (2005; Greatest Hits Album with additional non-album songs)
• Dogs Eating Dogs (2012; EP)
• "Not Another Christmas Song" (2019; non-album single)
• "Quarantine" (2020; non-album single)
• "Edging" (2022; non-album single)^note Would later be included in the tracklist for One More Time... in 2023.

---

blink-182 provide examples of:

• All Drummers Are Animals: Subverted with Travis...up to the point that he actually starts playing.
  • Travis versus Animal.
• Alternate Album Cover:
  • The deluxe edition of California has a re-color of the album's cover artwork to distinguish it from the standard edition; the original artwork is still featured within the deluxe edition's packaging.
  • While all the physical formats One More Time... was released on share the Minimalistic Cover Art with the band's name, the album's title, and a new version of the band's smiley logo, each format has a different background color: cyan for CD, bright pink for vinyl, and lime green for casette. The album's digital release, on the other hand, uses a plain white cover featuring three black-and-white photos of the members alongside the band name and album title.
• Alternate Music Video:
  • The original video for "Josie" features the band playing in a room, which gets flooded. They were so unsatisfied with the result, that they decided to make a new, much more known version set in high school, which has Mark trying to impress Alyssa Milano. The original version was only released as a 40 seconds long snippet in 2011.
  • The first music video for "Stay Together for the Kids" features a wrecking ball demolishing the house in front of which the band plays. As this video was made just prior to the September 11 attacks and could be seen as unintentional reference to them, the band shot a new video shortly afterwards, set in front of a derelict mansion.
• Anonymous Public Phone Call: The second verse of "What's My Age Again?" describes a disguised prank call from a pay phone:
  Later on, on the drive home,
  I called her mom from a pay phone.
  I said I was the cops and your husband's in jail.
  This state looks down on sodomy.
• Anti-Christmas Song: "I Won't Be Home For Christmas", "Happy Holidays, You Bastard", "Boxing Day" and "Not Another Christmas Song".
• Atomic F-Bomb: "Dysentery Gary" features one that comes out of absolute nowhere due to a break in the vocals occurring right before it.
  FUCK this place.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: The hidden track "Fuck a Dog" from the "Pants" edition of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. Three guesses as to what it's about.
• Boy Band: Parodied brilliantly in the video for "All the Small Things".
  • "All The Small Things" ended up influencing other groups, pop punk or otherwise, to make similar videos. All Time Low went out of their way to make two parody videos with heavy influence: "Poppin'" is "All The Small Things": Hip-Hop Edition and "I Feel Like Dancin'" parodies current pop acts, with the addition of a label executive critical framing device.
  • Heck, they even influenced One Direction. Their first video for "What Makes You Beautiful" was filmed at Santa Monica Beach, along with 1D having similar outfits and the video being filmed with the same angles, but the content wasn't Played for Laughs. This lead to jokes that blink had retroactively parodied them, a decade before 1D came into existence. Later on, their video for "Best Song Ever" would evoke classic blink videos by taking the piss out of 90s boy band cliches, taking even more of the piss out of themselves, introducing characters that wouldn't feel out of place in the "First Date" video, and Zayn Malik◊ beating Tom◊ in the crossdressing department. Louis Tomlinson has even covered "First Date" live, which Mark was actually curious about.
• Bowdlerise: Several song titles were changed name-wise for The Mark, Tom and Travis Show.
• The Bus Came Back: Looks like Boomer from the "First Date" video is out of prison. No one is safe.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • The band disowned their first music video, which was for "M+M's".
  • "Man Overboard" was banished into discontinuity when fans started asking if the mean spirited Take That! was about Scott Raynor, their previous drummer. It wasn't until 2011 when the band put the song back on their live sets.
• Changing Chorus:
  • The chorus of "What's My Age Again?" changes after every verse:
    • First chorus:
      And that's about the time she walked away from me
      Nobody likes you when you're twenty-three
      And are still more amused by TV shows
      What the hell is A.D.D.?
      My friends say I should act my age
      What's my age again, what's my age again?
    • Second chorus:
      And that's about the time that bitch hung up on me
      Nobody likes you when you're twenty-three
      And I'm still more amused by prank phone calls
      What the hell is call ID?
      My friends say I should act my age
      What's my age again, what's my age again?
    • After the guitar solo at the bridge, the chorus plays twice:
      And that's about the time she walked away from me
      Nobody likes you when you're twenty-three
      And you still act like you're in freshman year
      What the hell is wrong with me?
      My friends say I should act my age
      What's my age again, what's my age again?
      That's about the time she broke up with me
      No one should take themselves so seriously
      With many years ahead to fall in line
      Why would you wish that on me?
      I never want to act my age
      What's my age again, what's my age again?
  • A similar thing happens to the chorus of "Ghost on the Dance Floor":
    • First chorus:
      Yeah, I, I saw your ghost tonight
      The moment felt so real
      If your eyes stay right on mine
      My wounds would start to heal
    • Second chorus:
      Yeah, I, I saw your ghost tonight
      The moment felt so real
      If your eyes stay right on mine
      My wounds would start to heal
      I felt your ghost tonight
      And God, it felt like hell
      To know you're almost mine
      But dreams are all I feel
    • Final chorus after the bridge:
      Yeah, I, I saw your ghost tonight
      It fucking hurt like hell
      I felt you here tonight
      But dreams can't all be real
      I saw your ghost tonight
      It fucking hurt like hell
      I felt you here tonight
      But dreams can't all be real
• Cloudcuckoolander: All the members could qualify, but Tom takes this a step further, the only exception being Matt.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The first lyric line of "Online Songs" from Take Off Your Pants and Jacket name-drops "Josie" from Dude Ranch, which it has a similar tempo and guitar riffs to.
    Josie, you're my, source of most frustration
  • "Bored to Death" from California is name-dropped in "Blame It on My Youth" from Nine.
    I was bored to death, so I started a band
• Cowboy: The photos from Dude Ranch's packaging feature the band members dressed in cowboy costumes.
• Crossdresser:
  • Tom in the "All The Small Things" video. As with many things blink does, this is Played for Laughs.
  • The above is touched on in the album artwork for Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, where one of the photos included in the liner notes shows Tom holding up a dress with a floral pattern and smiling.
• Celibate Hero: "Going Away To College".
• Cluster F-Bomb: Tom at live shows.
• The Colored Cross: After a request from the American Red Cross, the subsequent releases of Enema of the State removed the red cross from the hat of Janine Lindemulder's Naughty Nurse Outfit on the album's packaging. For the cover of The Mark, Tom and Travis Show, the drawn nurse based on Lindemulder has a hat with a red heart.
• Cover Version: They covered Billy Idol 's "Dancing With Myself" and Jan and Dean 's "Dead Man's Curve" for tribute albums.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • They started to head this way with the untitled album, and dove right in after they reunited with Neighborhoods, as they had gone through a significant amount of turmoil throughout the hiatus, especially with the death of their longtime producer Jerry Finn and the near-death of Travis.
  • In contrast, however, they considered to include a few Lighter and Softer songs on Neighborhoods with the historical humor that people came to expect from the band, but concerns of Mood Dissonance and not having the time to put them on led them to be shelved for the time being. Apparently, it was said that their then-upcoming follow-up to Neighborhoods might have a song with an entire chorus about dicks; furthering these rumors, lyrics posted by Tom on Instagram featured a song about a guy who is really proud about really getting around.
  • The resulting album, California, managed to bring back quite a bit of the humor with tracks like "She's Out of Her Mind" and "Brohemian Rhapsody". Still, it also has similar songs to the untitled and Neighborhoods ("Home is Such a Lonely Place" and "Long Lost Feeling", for instance), so it's more of a balance now than anything else.
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • "Wrecked Him" is aptly named as far as the lyrics go. But it's blink-182, so the title is a pun on the word "rectum".
  • While not outright confirmed, Dude Ranch has been speculated by fans to play on multiple meanings that have been unofficially given to the term, including the most common meaning of a ranch used for tourism (giving us the cover art), a ranch wherein visitors come to play as cowboys (hence the internal photos of the band members dressed as cowboys), and especially its use as a sexual slang (mostly the meaning of "semen", but it has been used to refer to various sexual acts too).
  • Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. The double meaning is all in that last word.
• Dying Alone: In "Adam's Song", the lyrics twice mention the words, "I never thought I'd die alone."
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Their pre-Enema material notably sticks out from the rest of their discography. On top of having a rougher, significantly muffled mix, they're considerably more focused on raw song compositions than melodic ones. Several songs also feature recorded non-musical sounds used for comedic effect.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: The Prelude to "Heart's All Gone".
• Face on the Cover: The cover of the non-album single "Edging" is a photo of the band's members.
• Fading into the Next Song:
  • On Enema of the State:
    • "Going Away to College" fades into "What's My Age Again?". Makes sense, as the two songs are thematically connected (the former has the singer growing up, moving on, and going off to college, apparently leaving his girlfriend back in high school; the latter is about a Manchild who continues to pull childish shenanigans at age 23 and coming to terms with the fact that people are tired of dealing with his act).
    • "Adam's Song" ends with a synth sound that transitions into the beginning of "All the Small Things".
  • On Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, the closing riff of "Roller Coaster" continues into the intro of "Reckless Abandon" with a garbled sound quality.
  • On the self-titled/untitled album:
    • The short end point of "Go" contains the beginning of the radio noise that begins "Asthenia". "Asthenia" in turn ends with a brief bit of the ambience that opens "Always".
    • Similarly, the very end of "Here's Your Letter" has a part of the opening bell-like sound from "I'm Lost Without You".
    • The outro of "Easy Target" involves an electric riff that progressively becomes slower (accompanied by some electronic sounds) until it matches the rhythm of "All of This", whose main acoustic riff (which opens the song) shares the same melody, on top of also using the name "Holly" in its lyrics like "Easy Target" does.
• Faux Yay: For better or worse, Mark and Tom's bromance inspired an entire generation of pop-punk bands to play-up stage gay for all its worth.
• Funny Background Event: Spend too much time watching Mark get hot wax poured on him in the "All The Small Things" video and you'll miss Tom making out with his future wife◊ completely oblivious to Mark's pain.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: Subverted in "Adam's Song". While the song comes off as this at first, it ends on a much lighter note. Mark says that the song is about loneliness in general, not suicide. Tom, however, says that it is about suicide. It also doesn't help that Columbine Massacre survivor Greg Barnes killed himself while he had this song playing on indefinite repeat. So there's that.
• Goth: The video for "I Miss You".
• Grammar Nazi: Mark, as seen here, when he was a guest on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
• Intercourse with You: "Feeling This" and "Always". Admittedly, they are also both break-up songs, with this trope being mostly relegated to "flashback sections".
• Jekyll & Hyde: Mentioned in the chorus of "Natives":
  They turn us loose in the night
  I'm fucking Jekyll and Hyde
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A whole band full, with the obvious exception being Matt Skiba.
• Lead Bassist: Mark is one of the two frontmen, and was particularly dominant in the early days, as a Tom-led song only became a single the 11th time around with "All the Small Things".
• Longest Song Goes Last: Dude Ranch ends with "I'm Sorry", which at 5:38 is the only song on the album to surpass the 4-minute mark (even without counting the sound effect-based outro, at which it would clock at 4:27).
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Adam's Song" and "Carousel".
• Manchild: The 23-year-old singer of "What's My Age Again?" thinks he's too old to watch TV as he's about to get laid or do prank phone calls, but can't resist doing both things.
• Mascot: A Funny Animal rabbit who only wears jeans and sneakers by standard, but has worn many other outfits in the band's promotions and merchandise.
• Miniscule Rocking: A few songs, including:
  • "Family Reunion" (0:51), "Blow Job" (0:40) and "The Country Song" (1:00) from The Mark, Tom & Travis Show.
  • "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" (0:42) from Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.
  • "Built This Pool" (0:16) and "Brohemian Rhapsody" (0:30) off California. The album's deluxe edition also features "Can't Get You More Pregnant" (0:34).
  • "Turn This Off!" (0:23) and "Fuck Face" (0:27) off One More Time....
• Mushroom Samba: Neighborhoods has the song "Fighting the Gravity", a little ditty Mark wrote about what he was going through when he was accidentally slipped LSD in a drink. Spoiler: It wasn't a fun time. Even for Neighborhoods, it was an exceedingly different-sounding track.
• Music Video Overshadowing: While running around naked is something a Manchild such as the narrator of "What's My Age Again?" would do, the video's still not fully representative of the lyrics.
• Naughty Nurse Outfit: Porn star Janine Lindemulder wears one in the cover and album art for Enema of the State, and also appears with it in the music video for "What's My Age Again?", being the only thing that makes the naked and running bandmembers to go out of their way.
• New Sound Album:
  • Their self-titled/untitled album was noticeably different from their past catalogue, with a more somber and introspective tone, almost to the point of being a Trope Codifier of Emo as we know it. The album itself is somewhat a Spiritual Successor of Tom and Travis' Box Car Racer project, and clearly went on to influence the style of Tom's later band Angels & Airwaves.
  • Neighborhoods brings in elements of the band's side projects, along with a lack of the juvenile content the band is known for. This is understandable, considering what they've been through since 2005, but the fanbase's overall reaction to the album was inevitable.
  • The Dogs Eating Dogs EP goes like this: Neighborhoods-styled song, old school-ish blink song, (practically) an Angels & Airwaves song about a Zombie Apocalypse, a folk song, and another Neighborhoods song with rap guest vocals at the end.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Scott Raynor's departure from the band right before their popularity exploded in 1999. Tom and Mark refuse to talk about the circumstances at all, and neither does Scott. The most popular theories are: Mark had Scott fired due to an alleged drinking problem, Scott bailing because he wanted nothing to do with the band "selling out" with a more commercialized direction, and Scott being utterly unprepared with fame and the lengthy tours that the band would be going on to promote their music and basically bowed out on his own free will. Given that his departure came in the middle of a tour in 1998, it seems unlikely it was amicable.
  • "Man Overboard" is widely seen as blink-182's "response" to the departure of Raynor, even though the band denies it. Of course, they refuse to say WHO the song is about and continue to refuse to talk about why Raynor quit.
  • Tom's "departure" is seen as this. Mark and Travis state they got an email from Tom's manager confirming that he had decided to "exit the band" and he had "not taken interest in blink anymore" (which is considered by a majority of fans false due to Tom's energetic attitude during 2013-2014, especially at the Readings Festival). The two broke the news to the media, but then Tom posted on his Instagram that he had not left the band. But then Mark and Travis went to Rolling Stone and confirmed that Tom was in fact out. The entire spectacle was a huge public break-up which left fans devastated, but no one really knows what happened (or Tom's position due to the ambiguity of it). Nobody really knows, but Tom rejoined the band in 2022.
• Nude-Colored Clothes: In some of blink-182's videos, the band members look like they are running naked, with pixels censoring the nudity. It has been confirmed, however, that they were actually wearing skin-colored speedos.
• Out-of-Genre Experience:
  • "Boxing Day", intended to be a folk song.
  • "I Miss You," which is a goth-pop song done In the Style of The Cure, particularly their 1983 single "The Lovecats", and was done entirely on acoustic instruments. Mark even plays double bass.
  • "Stockholm Syndrome" has quite a post-hardcore/emo sound to it, featuring shouted vocals in the verses that are characteristic of the genre, as well as a slower, melodic chorus. Although the self-titled album had an emo influence, it never quite played the genre straight except for this song - which went on to be very influential on the crossover emo bands of the day.
• Period Piece: The video for "First Date" is set in The '70s, with particular focus on homaging The Bee Gees.
• Precision F-Strike: While they're not usually this subtle, "Dammit" has a good example (and yes, it has a subtle emphasis on the F-bomb):
  The steps that, I retraced
  The sad look, on your face
  The timing, and structure
  Did you hear? He fucked her
• Properly Paranoid: Travis is completely terrified of planes, which often gets in the way of tours since they either need a bus or a boat, but it's hard to blame a man who survived a plane crash.
• Pun-Based Title:
  • Enema of the State uses the word "enema" for a play on "enemy of the state".
  • Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, complete with a Visual Pun cover.
• Real Soon Now: Expect to wait a long time for new releases from them, what with everything else they're juggling.
  • Except for Dogs Eating Dogs, they started on it around Halloween of 2012 and it came out in December of the same year. It's just way faster for them to get work done when they're actually in the same room.
• Rearrange the Song:
  • The band has done this with several of their songs for live shows:
    • "Aliens Exist" has been reworked with new lyrics so that it's now about a closeted gay teenager comparing his secret sexuality to the notion of the government covering up the existence of aliens.
    • "What's My Age Again?" has lyric changes: "hell" is replaced with "fuck" and Mark, instead of singing "What's my age again?" as part of the chorus, will occasionally sing "Where's my Asian friend?".
    • "Going Away to College", when performed live, has Mark name-dropping his wife's name in the chorus, to make the song a love ballad from him to her.
    • "Dammit" is considerably changed in live form: Tom now sings the chorus instead of Mark and the band sticks in verses from other songs during the instrumental break right before the final repeating of the chorus.
  • "Waggy" was first released on They Came to Conquer... Uranus, in which it had the line "I'll just hide in my room until then" and no vocals after this point. When it was re-recorded for Dude Ranch, the line was changed to "I'll just jack off in my room until then", and a coda was added featuring the lyrics "It's never over till it's done, and I don't think that you're the one".
• Record Producer: Jerry Finn served as their main producer from 1999 until his 2008 death, producing Enema of the State, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and Blink-182. As a result of his passing, Neighborhoods was largely self-produced, while California was produced by John Feldmann and Nine by a combination of Feldmann and Tim Pagnotta.
  • In The New '20s, Travis became a successful record producer in his own right producing for other artists, including Machine Gun Kelly and Avril Lavigne (collaborating with Feldmann while producing the latter's Love Sux). When Tom rejoined the band in 2022, Travis produced their comeback album One More Time..., having earlier produced "On Some Emo Shit" on Nine.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Tom and Mark, respectively.
• Refuge in Audacity: "Family Reunion" is literally nothing but the Seven Dirty Words in song. The video for "What's My Age Again" is the band running naked through the streets of LA^note They were actually wearing skin-colored shorts under the censor blur. They have a song titled "Dysentery Gary" and "Fuck a Dog". blink is not afraid to cross some lines and when they do they cross all of them at once.
• Repeat After Me: In The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show, Tom addresses the audience: "I want all of you to say FUCK with me!" On the count of three, the audience yells out— you guessed it— "Fuck with me!" Mark asks Tom why he would want them to say that. They explain that Tom wanted them to say "fuck", but he wanted them to say it with him. They try it a second time and get it right.
• Rock Trio
  • Freudian Trio: Tom = The McCoy, Mark = The Spock, and Travis = The Kirk
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Usually averted - if the song is Tom's, he sang it and Mark provided the backing vocals; if the song is Mark's, the opposite happened; there are some occasional duets too, but the rule remains for the person who's not the "main" on that particular section (verse/chorus/bridge). Exceptions include "What's My Age Again?", "Online Songs" and "Feeling This", all of which, at some point, have Mark's lead (sometimes double-tracked), Tom's backing and another harmony vocal by Mark.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Mostly by Tom: "we're professionals at what we do - we professionally suck!"
  • If their merch is to be believed, their genre is "crappy punk rock".
• Sequel Song:
  • "Anthem Part Two", released on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, is this to "Anthem" from Enema of the State, sharing the topic of rebellion. Whereas "Anthem" is about a teenager's hatred for their oppressive parents, "Anthem Part Two" is a Protest Song against the manners of governmental, corporate and societal authorities.
  • Averted with "Anthem Part 3" from One More Time..., which, despite its title, has differently-themed lyrics to "Anthem" and "Anthem Part Two" (namely, about a person moving on from a regretful past, and encouraging a partner who had experienced the same thing as them to follow their lead).
• Seven Dirty Words: "Family Reunion" is the titular words in song!'
• Shout-Out:
  • "A New Hope" is prominently themed around Star Wars, and Mark has confirmed that it was named after the film. He's been a fan of the franchise since his father brought him to the cinema to watch A New Hope.
  • From "Dysentery Gary": "He's a player, diarrhea giver; tried to grow his hair out, friends were listening to Slayer."
  • From "Adam's Song": "I took my time, I hurried up; the choice was mine, I didn't think enough."
    • The song's title is also a reference to a Mr. Show sketch, wherein the metal band Titannica writes a song called "Adam's Song (Try Again)," with the intent of getting a young fan to kill himself so they won't have to take him on tour with them. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • "Family Reunion" is the seven words you can't say on TV put to music.
  • "The Rock Show" is basically a modern Ramones song.
  • From "I Miss You": "We can live like Jack and Sally if we want, where you can always find me, and we'll have Halloween on Christmas."
  • From "She's Out of Her Mind": "She got a black shirt, black skirt, and Bauhaus stuck in her head."
  • From "San Diego": "We bought a one-way ticket, so we can go see The Cure."
  • An official artwork used in Halloween-themed merch of the band since 2019 depicts Jason Voorhees' appearance in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter with a blue shirt and a mask with the band's smiley logo introduced in the self-titled album. More recently, said artwork was animated for screening in live performances of "Violence".
  • The "Violence" screening also features the band's rabbit mascot dressed as Freddy Krueger. The fact that both horror franchises are referenced together may or may not be a nod to the fact that they were largely close to each other in commercial terms (including the Freddy vs. Jason movie).
• Spiritual Successor: Travis and Mark's short-lived band +44 (formed soon after blink's breakup) was supposed to be this. It's a stark contrast to Tom's post-blink band Angels & Airwaves, which has a completely different style. Though it's now a moot point, since the band eventually got back together.
• Springtime for Hitler: "The Rock Show" and "First Date" from Take Off Your Pants and Jacket were the result of a meeting with the band's then-label manager, where he asked why the album didn't have a "feel good summer anthem". Furious, Mark and Tom set about writing "the cheesiest, catchiest, throwaway summertime single you've ever heard", with the former coming up with "The Rock Show" and the latter putting out "First Date." The two songs, in addition to becoming the album's most popular ones, ended up among the band's highest-charting singles.
• Step Up to the Microphone: One More Time... has Travis providing vocals on three songs: He performs lead vocals (along with Tom) on "Fuck Face", additional vocals on the title track and backing vocals on "Fell in Love".
• Stop and Go: "Always".
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Averted with Travis Barker replacing Scott Raynor, as Travis was the polar opposite of the shy, normal-looking Raynor.
• Take That!: According to Tom and Mark, "Man Overboard" isn't about Scott Raynor, the band's original drummer who left the band under mysterious circumstances and deny that the song is a mean-spirited attack against Scott (the song is about an unnamed drunken friend who Mark is glad is not around anymore and one of the rumors about why Scott Raynor left the band was that he had a drunken problem that caused Mark and Tom to fire him over). But the band won't say who the song is about and more so, they had refused to even play it live up until their 2011 shows due to people repeatedly asking whether it was about Raynor.
• Toilet Humour: Frequently. In "Happy Holidays, You Bastard", the singer complains about their grandpa because he's "always fuckin' shittin' his pants".
• Transparent Closet: Played with, most notably by Tom in the live version of "Aliens Exist".
• Uranus Is Showing: Invoked with the title of They Came to Conquer... Uranus.
• Vocal Evolution: Tom is frequently noted for this, as his voice varies from high-pitched and nasal to more mellow depending on the era of the band. Even more so when considering his other projects, where he sounds almost completely different.
• Vocal Tag Team: Some songs by Tom, some songs by Mark, and tracks such as "Feeling This" and "I Miss You" will alternate them.
• Vulgar Humor:
  • Several of their shorter, ruder songs, such as "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" and the misleadingly-titled "Family Reunion", whose lyrics consist entirely of the expanded version of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words.
  • They also seem to enjoy yelling things of varying obscenity, like "Fuck Oprah!" and "Orgasm!", right before starting a song live. About half of The Mark, Tom and Travis Show is stage banter between songs, rife with them. The album's iTunes version even has an expanded tracklist with one long hidden track consisting of nothing but banter.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Travis most of the time.
  • Stupid sexy Travis.
• We Used to Be Friends: In spades. Around 2005, Mark and Travis had a huge fallout with Tom following an immense complication of Poor Communication Kills, not speaking to each other until 2008 when Travis endured his plane crash. The reasons of the fallout were caused by Tom's formation of Box Car Racer with Travis, which Tom only made to expand his style and skills as a musician with music that wasn't "blink friendly". This was only complicated by Mark (who was not included in the project ^note though he did contribute guest vocals on the album version of "Elevator") who felt very betrayed by the situation and lead to more complications with Tom wanting to be with his family and Mark and Travis desiring to continue blink which lead to the break up.
  • Here We Go Again!: And history repeats itself, when the same shit went down again, back in January of 2015, this time with Mark and Travis telling Rolling Stone that they received an email from Tom's manager that he was out of the band due to focusing on]] his other project. The result was now Tom being out of blink (although some fans are still clinging that he's out for now), and Mark and Travis keep promoting blink with Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio as their temporary vocalist (although Mark and especially Travis keep hinting Matt will be a permanent member).
  • From an outside perspective, it looks like the problem was, them not really communicating well. Tom apparently had contracts signed with AVA's label, to make 2 of their albums, and 2 solo albums, for release in 2015, which would be an heroic amount of work, even if he wasn't also busy, with another band. His "I'm too busy to do this right now" message, was clearly misinterpreted, and the lack of an actual face to face conversation going on, has exacerbated it. Shouting at each other through social media, really isn't the way to stay friends.
  • Following Hoppus' lymphoma diagnosis and successful treatment, tensions between the two sides have cooled considerably. Tom tweeted a sweet message of support to Mark when the diagnosis was made public, and by late 2021, he said that his friendship with Mark had completely repaired.
    • And Tom has now rejoined blink-182.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: It's something of an easy target, making fun of Tom's, ahem, "unique" vocal style. This article attempts to pin down just exactly, what Tom's singing voice sounds like.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The video for "First Date."
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Yelawolf shows up at the end of "Pretty Little Girl". While he's good friends with Travis and partnered up with him for their Psychowhite side project, this makes it only the second time a blink song had guest vocals.
• Window Love: The video for "Feeling This."

---