Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (abbreviated as TOYPAJ) is the fourth studio album by American rock band Blink-182, released on June 12, 2001, by MCA Records. Nearly a decade deep in their career, Blink-182 had reached mainstream, multiplatinum heights with their previous album, Enema of the State (1999). The band continued its partnership with producer Jerry Finn to record the majority of the album in their hometown of San Diego. Its title is a double entendre ("take off your pants and jack it").
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket reflects a band in transition – marked by evolving styles and personal friction – with the trio split on its direction. It was made while grappling with creative burnout and industry demands, with their label pushing them to meet its deadlines and expectations. The resulting album mainly stays true to their polished pop-punk style, with its crowd-pleasing anthems subtly expanding the band's palette with post-hardcore tones and emo touches. Its lyrics chronicle adolescence, with songs dedicated to the prom, fighting authority, and teenage parties. As part of its rollout, the band adopted more mature branding, reflecting a growing desire to evolve artistically and shed their silly reputation.
Upon its release, Take Off was a modern rock blockbuster, becoming the first punk album to hit number one in the U.S., and selling over 14 million copies globally. It produced three hit singles—"The Rock Show", "Stay Together for the Kids", and "First Date". The CD release featured three collectible versions, each with unique bonus tracks and band-member icons. Critics generally complimented its expansion on teenage themes, while others viewed it as its weakness. To support the album, the band co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Green Day. A Y2K-era record, Take Off was part of a wave of loud and irreverent pop-punk that critics and musicians alike have cited as a lasting influence.
Background At the onset of the millennium, Blink-182 became one of the biggest international rock acts with the release of their third album Enema of the State (1999). It became an enormous worldwide success, moving over fifteen million copies. Singles "What's My Age Again?", "All the Small Things", and "Adam's Song" became radio staples, with their music videos and relationship with MTV cementing their stardom.Hoppus, 2001. p. 98 It marked the beginning of their friendship with producer Jerry Finn, a key architect of their "polished" pop-punk rhythm; according to journalist James Montgomery, writing for MTV News, the veteran engineer "served as an invaluable member of the Blink team: part adviser, part impartial observer, he helped smooth out tensions and hone their multiplatinum sound." The glossy production set Blink-182 apart from the other crossover punk acts of the era, such as Green Day, and this style and sound made for an extensive impact that permeated its way through the Southern California punk scene and beyond, igniting a new wave of the genre.
Behind the scenes, the three were adjusting to this new lifestyle. "After years of hard work, promotion, and nonstop touring, people knew who we were, and listened to what we were saying ... it scared the shit out of us," said bassist Mark Hoppus. Each musician was now wealthy and famous, which brought both comfort and challenges: DeLonge reacted to fame with a desire for privacy, and both Hoppus and Barker had been the subject of stalking. It became a transitionary time for the group, adjusting to larger venues than before, including amphitheaters, arenas, and stadiums. At the beginning of the album's promotional cycle, the trio were driving from show to show in a van with a trailer attached for merchandise and equipment; by its end, they were flying on private jets. Hoppus recalled that "we had gone from playing small clubs and sleeping on people's floors to headlining amphitheaters and staying in five-star hotels." On top of that, Blink was no longer simply responsible for their van and merchandise — as a newly minted "big" band, their operation employed accountants, attorneys, lighting, technicians, crew, carpenters, and more. The pressure was on: “Every day, there were 15 semitrucks and 15 buses carrying a crew of 70 people, plus the extensive local-venue staff, all depending on the three of us," Hoppus wrote in his memoir, adding: "We were running a large business that supported an entire economic infrastructure. Millions of dollars were at stake every single night."
In the public eye, Blink became known for their juvenile antics, including running around nude; the band made a cameo appearance in the similarly bawdy comedy American Pie (1999). While grateful for their success—which the trio parlayed into various business ventures, like Famous Stars and Straps, Atticus Clothing and Macbeth Footwear—they gradually became unhappy with their goofy public image. In one instance, the European arm of UMG had taken photos shot lampooning boy bands and distributed them at face value, making their basis for parody appear thin. In response, a conscious effort was made to make the trio appear more authentic with their next album. However, the relentless pace also was wearing on the group, and the growing divide between art and commerce began to frustrate them. The band was rushed into recording the follow-up, as according to DeLonge, "the president of MCA was penalizing us an obscene amount of money because our record wasn't going to be out in time for them to make their quarterly revenue statements. [...] And we were saying, 'Hey, we can't do this right now, we need to reorganize ourselves and really think about what we want to do and write the best record we can.' They didn't agree with us." To satiate fans in the interim, the band issued a stopgap live album, The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!), displaying more of their high-energy antics, in November 2000.
Recording and production Pre-production The band began pre-production in December 2000, using ideas they had been developing on the road over the past year. DeLonge joked to a BBC reporter that the material may not be so fresh: "About this time in our careers we start running out of guitar riffs and ideas, so we start pulling out of the archives," he laughed. They recorded demos at DML Studios, a small practice studio in Escondido, California, where the band had written Dude Ranch and Enema of the State. The group had written a dozen songs after three weeks and invited their manager, Rick DeVoe, to be the first person outside Blink-182 to hear the new material, which the band found "catchy [but with] a definitive edge". DeVoe quietly listened to the songs from the control room and generally avoided involving himself in the band's creative decisions, but recalled becoming increasingly concerned by the absence of an obvious "hit". Though he regarded the music as the band's domain, he worried that withholding his concerns could ultimately affect the album's sales and the band's commercial momentum.
Near the end of the session, he finally questioned the band about the lack of what he described as a "Blink-182 good-time summer anthem". DeLonge and Hoppus were furious, remarking, "You want a fucking single? I'll write you the cheesiest, catchiest, throwaway fucking summertime single you've ever heard!" Hoppus went home and wrote lead single "The Rock Show" in ten minutes, and DeLonge similarly wrote "First Date", which became the most successful singles from the record and future live staples. Hoppus likened it to "anti-thought", with the goal of not overthinking it – simply making something friendly and enjoyable for a wide audience. "In a way, they ended up being the most fun," he conceded.
While writing the album, Barker frequently commuted between his home studio in Riverside and Hoppus and DeLonge's homes in San Diego, with the trio regularly driving back and forth across Southern California to develop new material. The three also worked on the arrangements for at Barker's Famous Stars and Straps warehouse. Barker also proposed being promoted to official partner in the band; prior to 2001, he had been considered a touring musician only, and while he had arranged the songs on Enema, he received no publishing residuals. Hoppus and DeLonge obliged – they wanted his input on songwriting. Finn came into the process during the last week of pre-production, and was very fond of Barker's drum parts, which the other musicians found unconventional and "algebraic". Barker remembered going into the process was intimidating but exciting: "We had a lot more pressure on that album than we did before, when nobody seemed to be paying attention. We had this huge success, but that just made us feel like we had something to prove. Instead of saying, 'Let's write some simple songs that will be huge,' we thought we'd try something more technical and darker. We wanted to be taken seriously, and we wanted to challenge ourselves."
Recording
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket was recorded between December 2000 and March 2001. The band began proper tracking for drums not long after pre-production at Larrabee Studios West and Cello Studios in Hollywood. The working relationship with producer Jerry Finn had been so fruitful that the same team was largely engaged for Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, with Finn producing and Joe McGrath engineering.Shooman, 2010. p. 82 Barker recorded his drum parts in "two or three days" while DeLonge and Hoppus watched television upstairs. Barker recorded the songs from memory with no scratch tracks, largely in one take; Take Off was the first time he enabled a click track while recording to ensure timing. When the drums were finished, the band returned to San Diego to record the majority of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket at Signature Sound, where they had also recorded its predecessor. While the band worked with few days off, the sessions also proved to be memorable: "We took long dinner breaks, ate Sombrero burritos, watched Family Guy and Mr. Show, and laughed way too hard," said Hoppus.
The band later acknowledged that Take Off Your Pants and Jacket was shaped by label pressure to replicate the commercial success of Enema of the State.Shooman, 2010. p. 94 DeLonge said the pressure prevented the album from taking any "creative leaps [or] bounds," recalling that the band had begun bringing additional equipment into the studio in hopes of expanding its sound before rushing to complete the record. He later described the band's 2003 untitled album as the more ambitious work they had originally intended to make. Barker similarly said the album was completed under a contractual deadline before the band was "ready to be in the studio"; he noted the album was turned in before the band felt it was ready, explaining that they wanted more time to experiment in the studio. Despite the pressure, the band's sense of humor remained intact: when MCA executives visited San Diego to hear the new material, blink-182 jokingly pretended that the only songs they had recorded were "Fuck a Dog" and "When You Fucked Hitler" (later rewritten as "When You Fucked Grandpa"), leaving the executives "incredulous," according to DeLonge.