It's pretty common knowledge by now, but in case you haven't heard, Blink-182 is over and done with. While covering themselves with the ânever say never attitude' and just calling it an âindefinite hiatus,' it seems clear that Blink is now in the graveyard of punk acts of the past.
Simply, a three-way soap opera of the trio offending each other with side projects and television shows were reasons cited by Tom DeLonge in a recent interview for the disbanding. But not without one last money-making opportunity.
A Greatest Hits album, of course, designed to showcase almost a decade of albums, featuring all the radio songs off their more recent albums, and a few tracks from the early ones. It also features two previously unreleased tunes, "Not Now" and "Another Girl Another Planet," neither of which are very impressive.
For a band that brought pop-punk to the forefront again for a certain generation, this album is truly a let-down. Instead of leaving something that true Blink fans will be able to remember them by, it feels more like they wanted to make one last buck, while fulfilling a few contractual obligations.
Seventeen tracks seem like hardly enough, and the selection isn't great. No real, new work went into this, so why be so uncharitable in the selection? The only songs from Cheshire Cat are "Carousel" and "M&Ms," and nothing from Buddha appears. Great songs, but there were so many more from these two albums. Only 2 tracks from the album that most old fans will tell you made the band, Dude Ranch, appear here. It is, however, loaded with 4 tracks from their self-titled release, which was a turn in a much different direction for the band near its end.
If you're really a fan of the band, there are just so many tracks missing that could have made this hits collection something special. If you're a fan of pop-punk at all, I'd recommend picking up the full albums or making your own choices on iTunes, as Blink is a band that, despite its faults, will always be an important band to the pop-punk movement. Their Greatest Hits album is unfortunately just a disappointing end to an otherwise impressive career.