'Take Off Your Pants And Jacket' is the fourth studio album from Blink 182. Following on from the hugely successful 1999 album 'Enema Of The State', Blink 182 deliver another collection of three minute punk pop workouts, including the single 'The Rock Show'.

Jul 2001

With possibly the daftest album title of the year (very apt!), Blink 182 return to the fray with another album of hi-octane pop/punk. If you're a fan, you'll know what to expect – scatalogically-obsessed lyrics underpinned by simple, catchy, energetic bounce-along melodies played on buzz-saw guitars. If you've not yet caught the wave of Blink-mania, 'Take Off Your Pants and Jacket' is the perfect place to begin. The album includes the forthcoming single, 'The Rock Show'.

• Rolling Stone (7/5/01, pp.135-6) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...Improving on their last album...they keep everything light, fast and punchy....They're rock & roll boys who aren't scared to sing for and about rock & roll girls....baring their painfully adolescent fragility and confusion without playing coy..."
  Q (8/01, p.124) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Spices regulation teen angst with back-of-the-classroom toilet humor....containing some very good pop songs..."

Blink 182: Tom DeLonge (vocals, guitar); Mark Hoppus (vocals, bass); Travis Barker (drums).
Additional personnel: Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (keyboards).
Recorded at Signature Sound, San Diego, California, Larrabee Studios West, Cello Studios, Hollywood, California.
Website: www.blink182.com
Older and more successful but no less fascinated by the same things as their adolescent fan base (toilet humor, sex, and awkward social situations), Mark, Tom and Travis greet 2001 with another platter's worth of chugging guitar riffs, infectious hooks and plenty of moxie. The album opens with the sequel to the last cut on ENEMA OF THE STATE. "Anthem Part II" is a generational rant focusing on the hopelessness felt by teens taken lightly by the world because of their age. Blink 182 does a fine job tapping into the universal theme of unrequited love ("Story Of A Lonely Boy"), divorce ("Stay Together For The Kids") and surviving the social perils of high school cliques ("Give Me One Good Reason").
Lest this become a musical equivalent to a Judy Bloom book, Blink throws in plenty of inappropriate moments of Sandler-esque proportions. There's the 40-second, jack-hammer fast diatribe against an ex-girlfriend involving unnatural acts with her parents ("Happy Holidays, You Bastard"), ennui-killing acting out ("Reckless Abandon"), and kicking back with a cute girl at a Vans Warped Tour show. Despite their goofy rep, Blink-182's combination of vulnerable lyrics and pop smarts blow away any notion of these guys being another dumb punk band.

California skate-punk trio Blink 182 employed a snappy mix of punk-pop and humour that appealed to a whole new generation of rock fans too young to have fully appreciated Green Day's initial impact. These third- (or fourth-) generation punks became the linchpin of an entire movement; any late-1990s/early-2000s kid whose life revolved around skateboarding, the Vans Warped tours, and multiple body piercings probably made a place of honour in his collection for the colourfully titled ENEMA OF THE STATE and TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS & JACKET. The band went on indefinite hiatus in 2005, and guitarist Tom Delonge introduced his new band, Angels And Airwaves, in 2006. In 2009, Blink 182 reunited for a much anticipated tour, with Weezer slated as one of the opening acts.