Blink-182 (also referred to as the untitled album) is the fifth studio album by American rock band Blink-182, released on November 18, 2003, by Geffen Records. Following the blockbuster success of their last two albums, Enema of the State and Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, the trio went on hiatus and participated in various side projects including Box Car Racer and Transplants. When they regrouped, they decided to approach their next album by placing more attention on song structure and expand musical arrangements. Their longest album, it marks a shift toward a darker, more expansive and complex sound; its interconnected songs and cinematic structure blur the lines between pop-punk and post-hardcore.
The recording process for the album began in a rented San Diego mansion and evolved into a costly project spanning over a year, two record labels, and more than a million dollars. The band, led by producer Jerry Finn, transformed the house into a fully equipped "musical laboratory," using an extensive array of vintage gear, experimental instruments, and unconventional analog techniques. Its songwriting is more personal in nature and explores mature territory, touching upon the realities of adulthood and unexpected hardships, as well as personal growth and global unrest. Its ambiguous title embraces a serious, undefined identity, complemented by cover art introducing an iconographic "smiley" logo inspired by edgy pop art and punk aesthetics. The album features a gothic collaboration with Robert Smith of The Cure.
Released at the forefront of the emo cultural peak, the album proved successful, selling 2.2 million copies in the United States. It received positive reviews, with critics welcoming its change in tone. Lead singles "Feeling This" and "I Miss You" received the most radio airplay out of the four singles released, and peaked high on Billboard charts. The worldwide touring schedule, which saw the band travel to Japan and Australia, also found the three performing for U.S. military troops stationed in the Middle East. The album was the band's last recording with longtime producer Jerry Finn and their final original material before their first breakup. The band and critics alike regard the LP as a highlight; it was celebrated with sold-out anniversary performances a decade after its release.
Background
After a decade of touring and making music, Blink-182 had reached a breaking point. The trio—guitarist Tom Delonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Travis Barker—had seen their lives change dramatically as their band reached superstar levels of fame. Their fourth album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001), had gone multi-platinum just as its predecessor, and throughout 2002 they co-headlined with genre forebears Green Day in arenas and amphitheaters across North America. Beneath the surface, however, relations were becoming strained. They became conflicted on their goofy, nudist public image, and Hoppus and DeLonge began to clash creatively, with DeLonge striving for a heavier sound. The close bond between the once dynamic duo was fracturing with age: in his memoir, Hoppus observes that "[formerly] outgoing and boisterous, [Tom] became increasingly private and secretive," while acknowledging there was an emerging rivalry between their wives. Barker felt these dynamics change as the three all got married: "Blink-182 were no longer just three inseparable guys who were touring together." Later, Barker began dating model Shanna Moakler, inviting tabloid attention, adding to the "awkwardness" present in the band. All three men became fathers between 2002 and 2003, further hastening the onset of more adult responsibilities. The September 11 attacks put an end to any immediate touring plans, leading to a brief gap in their frenetic schedule.Shooman, 2010. p. 89
Over the break, DeLonge began to suffer from significant back pain due to a herniated disc, and had privately become discontented by the constraints placed by the record label and the band's signature sound, which was becoming popularized elsewhere. He felt a desire to broaden his musical palette, and channeled these frustrations into an album, Box Car Racer,Shooman, 2010. p. 92 inspired by post-hardcore bands like Fugazi and Refused. Blink producer Jerry Finn naturally returned to engineer, and DeLonge, ostensibly trying to avoid paying a session player,Shooman, 2010. p. 94 invited Barker to record drums—making Hoppus the odd man out. It marked a major rift in their friendship: while DeLonge claimed he was not intentionally omitted, Hoppus nonetheless felt betrayed.Shooman, 2010. p. 94 "At the end of 2001, it felt like Blink-182 had broken up. It wasn't spoken about, but it felt over", said Hoppus later. With A&R representatives from MCA Records eager to market a new band by the guitarist, this new band, called Box Car Racer, quickly evolved into a full-fledged side project, launching two national tours throughout 2002. The relationship between Hoppus and DeLonge had a low point, introducing a chasm in their chemistry present from that moment on: "The message was clear: Tom thought I held him back from greatness. It didn’t feel like we were best friends trying to conquer the world together anymore."
The trio reportedly had "hundreds of discussions" on the issue, seemingly putting the conflict to rest. Over the years, however, they acknowledged that the tension never truly disappeared—it lingered beneath the surface. By the end of 2002, the band were preparing to reconvene to record another album. The heavier sound of Box Car Racer inspired the change in tone and experimental nature the band approached Blink-182 with. Hoppus described his desire for the album to experiment with different arrangements in a 2002 interview: "Before, we got one guitar sound that we changed a little bit through the record. This time we want to try a whole different setup for each song." Hoppus recalled that Barker entered the production process by urging the band to "[not think of the album] as the next Blink-182 record — think of it as the first Blink-182 record." "Once the door was opened by Tom and Travis with Box Car Racer, Mark started to be more on board with that concept. He was also more flexible and the next Blink album was able to be a pretty big departure from the previous two", said assistant engineer Sam Boukas. "Box Car Racer opened the door in that sense and I think the three of them wanted to be more creative and have more creative liberty on that next album."Shooman, 2010. p. 121 Meanwhile, Barker also extended his love of hip-hop into the rap rock outfit Transplants, a collaboration with Rancid's Tim Armstrong.
Recording and production
Blink-182 was recorded at several studios throughout 2003, but the initial plan started with a house. In January 2003, the band rented a mansion in the San Diego luxury community of Rancho Santa Fe, planning to record the entire album there. DeLonge had grown weary of booking studio time, and the house was a way to shake things up, as well as preserving a normal family lifestyle. He partnered with a local realtor who found them a gated villa in the suburb. Hoppus acknowledged the absurdity of their position: "It's happened so many times it’s a rock 'n' roll cliché. A band gets more than a decade deep into their career and ends up spending way too much time and money in the studio laboring over their magnum opus," he joked. The entire home was retrofitted as a provisional recording facility, and the windows were temporarily soundproofed.
Jerry Finn, the band's go-to producer, returned to guide the process, in what would be his final collaboration with the band. Ryan Hewitt, renowned for his work with Red Hot Chili Peppers and U2, was the main engineer behind the album. Hoppus and DeLonge lived nearby; Barker, unwilling to leave Moakler, would drive from Los Angeles to San Diego each day. For the engineers, it was even easier: Hewitt and Finn simply moved into the temporary recording setup. In addition to the home being converted into a studio, pay-per-view pornography was on continuous play; the band found it outlandish and opulent to have on in the background. After some time, the family who owned the property got a bill from the cable provider for thousands of dollars in erotica rentals. Meanwhile, the band used the garage as space for other purposes; namely, to "smoke hella weed". DeLonge commented: "If I wasn't smoking half of Colombia I probably ran up $3 million in adult film charges." The in-studio antics were recorded and posted on the official band website throughout the year, as well in the documentary series MTV Album Launch.
Creatively, the trio set out to completely reinvent their approach to songwriting from the ground up. They ditched their typical previous recording process (writing and demoing several songs and recording them in a studio one instrument at a time) and instead approached each song together. They worked on multiple songs each day, building each with a minute attention to detail, moving on to another when creatively spent. The band stated that taking their time in the studio gave them the luxury of experimenting with different methods of writing, playing, and recording. The band recorded at the home until April 2003, when the owners of the house "kicked them out." At that point, the band had been working for sixty days and only had two finished songs. They continued working at other facilities around San Diego, like Signature Sound and Rolling Thunder, until they ran out of time. Looking for a change of scenery, they moved operations to Los Angeles' Conway Recording Studios—one of Finn's favorite locales. DeLonge and Hoppus stayed at the W Hotel with their families during recording, which only added to the record's increasingly large budget.
Altogether, the recording period of the album, as well its mixing and mastering, lasted from January to October 2003. Previous Blink-182 sessions were recorded in three months. Though the band had their share of arguments in the past, making the album was a positive experience. Despite lingering friction due to Box Car, Hoppus and DeLonge got along during the process, discovering their chemistry was still intact. "We'd put the animosity behind us and were of one mind again, united in our desire to make something special," Hoppus recalled, observing that he and his partner "were back to encouraging each other’s creativity and helping one another with ideas." He was reportedly was originally conflicted on the new direction, but felt the goal of illustrating more depth to the band was achieved: "We needed to prove that there was something deeper than [...] the dudes that ran naked in the video," he said. For Barker, he later considered it his favorite time in the band's history, commenting, "That was a good time in my life," he reminisced some time later: "That's by far my favorite album we did." Hewitt concurred: "it was one of the best times I've had making a record," he told Tape Op. Collaborations
The album features a large array of collaborators, in a first for the band. During the process, the band partnered with DJ Shadow and Dan the Automator; Barker recorded "The Fallen Interlude" with producer Sick Jacken, of the gangsta rap group Psycho Realm. A planned collaboration with the Neptunes never came to fruition. Barker noted that a planned collaboration with N.E.R.D., a spinoff of the Neptunes, involved reciprocal guest appearances—he would contribute to their record while they would feature on a Blink-182 release. The collaboration ultimately never materialized. The band also asked Ken Andrews, frontman of the band Failure, to contribute to its songs at his choosing. Andrews ended up adding guitars and keyboards to "Obvious" and "Violence".