I have been a huge fan of Blink-182 since the 90′s.  Cheshire Cat, Buddha, Dude Ranch, and Enema of the State were the soundtrack to my high school years.  So when they announced they were back from hiatus in 2009 I was ecstatic. Of course today when they announced you could stream the Neighborhoods album online I was even more ecstatic, but when the album kicked off with the song “Ghost on the Dance Floor” a familiar tune hit my ears.  I ran through the catalog of Blink 182 songs in my head, then I dug a little deeper and ran through the catalog of +44 and Angels and Airwaves songs in my head, but when I dialed it back a bit further I remembered a song by the short lived Blink-182 side project Box Car Racer.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Box Car Racer, they were the very first Blink-182 side project taht formed in 2001.  The band stemmed out of boredom between tours following the September 11 attacks as a way for Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker to experiment with material that wasn’t suitable for the Blink-182 sound. During it’s short tenure the band released a self titled album and two singles. The second single off the album was titled “There Is”, and that is where a nearly decade old melody meets the first track on the new Blink-182 album.

Below is a sample from the song Ghost on the Dance floor merged with a sample from the song “There Is” from Box Car Racer’s 2002 release.

There Is A Ghost On The Dance Floor

Though “There Is” is a much slower song, the vocals on “Ghost on the Dance Floor” carry a very familiar tune.

While this one track has haunting similarities to Blink’s original attempt at a more mature sound, I must say that regardless of the comparisons and gripes that the new album “Neighborhoods” is too much like +44, or too much like Angels and Airwaves, or too much whatever, I really like the new album.  It’s a solid effort from a band that was off the grid for much too long.  If you haven’t checked it out already head over to http://neighborhoods.blink182.com and give it a listen with the “neighbors” in your city.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my assessment of the two songs? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Amidst the media frenzy surrounding the long overdue release of Hole’s album ‘Nobody’s Daughter’ brings with it an ongoing love/hate relationship that has defined Courtney Love and Billy Corgan for years.  It started after Corgan attacked Love in an interview with Rolling Stone, which was followed up by a public apology on Facebook last month from Courtney Love that read;

“Dearest Billy:

I love you, I love your strong and eternal heart, even love the f***ed up gnarly amazing magnificent bigger-than-god louder-than-love karma of the songs you write and allow me to fly with. We have again created beauty from the agony between us, all the buried and unburied anguish, all that is true, that is gold, that is meant to be is within this endless and somehow eternal cycle of Billy & Courtney. I hope you will take my sincerest apologies for all the thousand ways I sometimes offend you, because I know you are a king, a prince, and my beautiful noble boy. No one will ever force my hand, nothing will come between the truth of what we are:

Eternal lovers

Eternal fighters
Eternal warriors.

Let the forces and the shock and awe loose from its cages, all credit where it is due. I love and you and can never thank you enough.Your soul (and you know this).

Xxx CLC”

But it would seem that this public apology simply wasn’t enough for Corgan, because today he lashed out in a series of tweets clearly aimed at the frontwoman. Below is the thread as it appeared on Twitter.

What are your thoughts on this whole debacle and Corgan’s comeback to last month’s apology from Courtney Love? Do you think this will hurt or help the release of the new Hole album?

So if you haven’t heard yet, Stone Temple Pilots are back with a brand new single called Between the Lines.  Local radio station 106.7 KROQ started playing the song recently and after hearing it for the first time I found a distinct similarity between it and Nirvana’s “Stay Away”.

Any die hard Nirvana fans that have heard the song probably picked up on the similarities as quickly as I did.  When Between the Lines reaches the bridge it goes into a sequence that is very reminiscent of the verses to Nirvana’s “Stay Away”.  Below are clips from the new Stone Temple Pilots song Between the Lines and a clip from Nirvana’s “Stay Away”.  What do you think? Strong similarity or blatant ripoff?

Between the Lines Bridge

Stay Away Verse