A History of Blink 182 Part Two by Ewan

After two years of touring, Blink 182 returned with their third and breakthrough album, Enema of the State. This was when they really broke, and their image changed for the first time. The songs on this album aren't so much about being a teenager, but sympathising with them, writing about the pains of growing up. As such the band was sold as spokespeople for the teenagers. Three idiots who were grown up but didn't act that way. Two of the videos released towards the promotion of this album (All the Small Things and What's My Age Again?) show the band both parodying contempory pop groups and... basically running through town naked, showing the band as three people who just like to act like idiots. The other video released from this album was Adams Song. Tonally, this was different to anything Blink had done before, being a song about suicide and as such, everything about the video is different. It's completely played straight, the lighting and colours are all darker and there is more emphasis on a straight performance.


Blink 182 parody pop groups in All the Small Things

In 2001, Blink 182's Take Off Your Pants and Jaket was released. Continuing in the same vein as Enema, Blink were labelled as spokesperson for the youth as opposed to youths themselves. With the video of single First Date, Blink 182 once again played the parody angle, while The Rock Show was shot with the intention of being made to look like a home made skater video, thereby sticking to Blink 182's Californian skater roots. The final video, Stay Together For the Kids was another sojourn into the (at the time) rarely glimpsed mature side of Blink 182. This video, much liked Adams Song, showed Blink 182 as simply the band instead of being characters within the actual video. The lighting and setting also recall the bleak tones of Adams Song.