A recent post from Blink-182 bassist and vocalist, Mark Hoppus has revealed that the Californian pop-punk trio are near completion of their as-of-yet untitled new album. Hoppus states that the band are "getting to the point where we talk about mixers and finishing up songs." It's exciting news, obviously as I do love Blink-182 and am looking forward to seeing a new album, following an eight year gap. But wait a minute, haven't we been seeing this post every fortnight for the past five months?
Yes, as happy as I am about this album being made, I can't help but feel that Blink are ever so slightly screwing their fans over in almost everything they do. They release constant statements of how close their new abum is to completion, and act in absolute devotion to the making of this album, then continue to act in a way to suggest a lack of progress being made. For example, they say that this album has been in the making for the past three years, since the band chose to reform following drummer, Travis Barker's plane crash, however it seems like they've taken more of a rushed approach to making the album in the past few months. Well what were they doing over the past three years?
A better example of the how they have screwed their fans over is in the way that they clearly dissapointed their masses of UK fans when cancelling all their summer tour dates in the UK, postponing them until 2012. This included pulling out of their massive headlining slot at this years T in the Park festival, resulting in them being replaced by my most hated band, The Arctic Monkeys. Hoppus claimed this was because they wanted to spend more time on finishing the album, and that they wanted to have more time for tracks from their new album to be known by the public so they could be sung along to at concerts. Following this, the band then commited the biggest act of hypocrisy I've seen for a while. A few weeks later they announced they would be touring the United States with My Chemical Romance, aas part of the Honda Civic tour. That doesn't suggest progress on making an album to me.
So yes, it's obvious that Blink-182 have been taking the piss out of their fans, especially in the UK and I can only hope they realise that they pretty much need to make this generation's "Back in Black" if they are to gain any forgiveness. For all they have done, and in all the ways they have screwed their fans the way they have, they have to come back after eight years with the greatest album man has ever heard.
