According to my calculations this will be my 6th blog entry and according to my gumption the other 5 ones pale in comparison to the classic that I will now touch upon. I kid you not, DUDE RANCH pisses all over every record you’ve ever heard (from age of quarrel to blonde on blonde) and it pisses all over credibility. Who the fuck needs credibility when you can listen to the greatest thing since pet sounds? Too many goddamn people, that’s who. It bums me out to no extent when dudes think too highly of themselves to enjoy a BLINK record, let alone acknowledge its genius. Just picture BUZZCOCKS playing some NOFX covers or something. Now try figuring out how this could be a bad thing. You fail. BLINK wins.This band was able to combine all of the genre’s best assets and they really fucking nailed it with DUDE RANCH. Under the supervision of Mark ‘the legend’ Trombino and with the urgency of a bunch of youngsters dying to get out of the garage and possibly even sunny suburban San Diego staleness, BLINK rages through a flawless collection of coming-of-age-anthems that is yet to be rivalled. DUDE RANCH depicts the fun of giving some kid a wedgie but then just gets really sad when you realize that same kid is probably jerking off to some picture of some girl in some yearbook with parents that don’t care about anything as long as he doesn’t leave a mess and gets good grades. Realisation can be such a party-pooper sometimes.
I know it’s easy to just write this off as completely irrelevant frat boy shenanigans but in reality it’s one of the most accurate descriptions of life ever recorded. We’ve all yanked out other dudes’ pubes and we’ve all tried skateboarding. We’ve had our forgettable love interests and we’ve learned from our mistakes. This ongoing process of maturation might not allow us to set our farts on fire anymore and each problem we now meet surpasses any of the high school crap that made us long for adulthood. But just know that if someone would’ve actually taped your most embarrassing moments and compiled them into a 3-minute video, any song off of DUDE RANCH would be the perfect soundtrack. And you’d laugh really… Hopefully…
A much wiser man than myself once said: “BLINK haterz: quit the pose.” But unfortunately, truth will always be overlooked and there will always be people who refuse to enjoy a record that has a bull’s scrotum for a cover. Their loss I guess.
Peace.
