You know how I said I was (with a great degree of trepidation and scepticism) excited about the new Blink 182 and Red Hot Chili Peppers' records? Well, within the last week or so, both bands released the first singles from their new albums. People, I was right to be sceptical because both singles are very much a trip to Blah-town.
Blink 182’s effort Up All Night sounds like a cross between singer, Tom De Longe’s side project, Angels & Airwaves and Blink’s 2003 self-titled album…which is not a good thing. Basically it’s boring and takes itself way too seriously. Not to mention that the intro sounds nothing like the Blink 182 that we know and love. I actually had to skip to the middle of the song to check that I’d downloaded the right thing! This song lacks the fun, the innuendo and the pop-punk party spirit that the old Blink 182 gave us in spades.
And the new Chili Peppers song, The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie (worst song title ever!), isn’t much better. It’s just…dull. Sure, it sounds like the Red Hot Chili Peppers but it doesn’t deliver the same punch and energy that a lot of their other singles have in the past. The lyrics and tempo are predictable, Anthony Kiedis’ vocals sound stale, and new guitarist, Josh Klinghoffer hasn’t brought anything exciting or innovative to the table. To me, the Chili Peppers have long been about musical innovation and the seamless mixing of genres but this song is just a big nap. We’ve heard it before and we’ve heard it done a lot better than this.
Will the records be better than the singles? Will there be some hidden gems that recapture the magic of these once great bands? We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
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