Take Off Your Pants and Jacket is the fourth studio album by American rock band Blink-182,released on June 12,2001,by MCA Records. The band had spent much of the previous year traveling and supporting their previous album Enema of the State (1999),which launched their mainstream career. The album's title is a tongue-in-cheekpun on male masturbation ("take off your pants and jack it"),and its cover art has icons for each member of the trio:an airplane ("take off"),a pair of pants,and a jacket. It is the band's final release through MCA before the label was absorbed into Geffen.
The album was recorded over three months at Signature Sound in San Diego with producer Jerry Finn. During the sessions,MCA executives pressured the band to retain the sound that helped their previous album sell millions. As such,Take Off Your Pants and Jacket continues the pop-punk tone that Blink-182 had honed and made famous,albeit with a heavier post-hardcore sound inspired by bands such as Fugazi and Refused. Regarding its lyrical content,it has been referred to as a concept album chronicling adolescence,with songs dedicated to first dates,fighting authority,and teenage parties. Due to differing opinions on direction,the trio worked in opposition to one another for the first time,and the sessions sometimes became contentious.
The album had near-immediate success,becoming the first punk rock record to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 and achieving double platinum certification in May 2002. It produced three hit singles—"The Rock Show","Stay Together for the Kids",and "First Date"—that were top-ten hits on modern rock charts. Critical impressions of the album were generally positive,commending its expansion on teenage themes,although others viewed this as its weakness. To support the album,the band co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Green Day. Take Off Your Pants and Jacket has sold over 14 million copies worldwide.
Background
At the onset of the millennium,Blink-182 became one of the biggest international rock acts with the release of their third album,the fast-paced,melodic Enema of the State(1999).[5] It became an enormous worldwide success,moving over fifteen million copies.[6] Singles "What's My Age Again?","All the Small Things",and "Adam's Song" became radio staples,with their music videos and relationship with MTV cementing their stardom.[7][8][9] It marked the beginning of their friendship with producer Jerry Finn,a key architect of their "polished" pop-punk rhythm;according to journalist James Montgomery,writing for MTV News,the veteran engineer "served as an invaluable member of the Blink team:part adviser,part impartial observer,he helped smooth out tensions and hone their multiplatinum sound."[10] The glossy production set Blink-182 apart from the other crossover punk acts of the era,such as Green Day,[11] and this style and sound made for an extensive impact on pop punk,igniting a new wave of the genre.[12]
Behind the scenes,the three were adjusting to this new lifestyle. "After years of hard work,promotion,and nonstop touring,people knew who we were,and listened to what we were saying... it scared the shit out of us," said bassist Mark Hoppus.[2][13] Each musician was now wealthy and famous,which brought both comfort and challenges:DeLonge reacted to fame with a desire for privacy,and both Hoppus and Barker had been the subject of stalking.[14][15] It became a transitionary time for the group,adjusting to larger venues than before,including amphitheaters,arenas,and stadiums. At the beginning of the album's promotional cycle,the trio were driving from show to show in a van with a trailer attached for merchandise and equipment;[16] by its end,they were flying on private jets.[17] Hoppus recalled that "we had gone from playing small clubs and sleeping on people's floors to headlining amphitheaters and staying in five-star hotels."[2] On top of that,Blink was no longer simply responsible for their van and merchandise —as a newly minted "big" band,their operation employed accountants,attorneys,lighting,technicians,crew,carpenters,and more. The pressure was on:“Every day,there were 15 semitrucks and 15 buses carrying a crew of 70 people,plus the extensive local-venue staff,all depending on the three of us," Hoppus wrote in his memoir,adding:"We were running a large business that supported an entire economic infrastructure. Millions of dollars were at stake every single night."[15]
In the public eye,Blink became known for their juvenile antics,including running around nude;[18] the band made a cameo appearance in the similarly bawdy comedy American Pie (1999).[19] While grateful for their success—which the trio parlayed into various business ventures,like Famous Stars and Straps,Atticus Clothing and Macbeth Footwear[20]—they gradually became unhappy with their goofy public image. In one instance,the European arm of UMG had taken photos shot lampooning boy bands and distributed them at face value,making their basis for parody appear thin.[21] In response,a conscious effort was made to make the trio appear more authentic with their next album. However,the relentless pace also was wearing on the group,and the growing divide between art and commerce began to frustrate them. The band was rushed into recording the follow-up,as according to DeLonge,"the president of MCA was penalizing us an obscene amount of money because our record wasn't going to be out in time for them to make their quarterly revenue statements. [...] And we were saying,'Hey,we can't do this right now,we need to reorganize ourselves and really think about what we want to do and write the best record we can.' They didn't agree with us."[22] To satiate fans in the interim,the band issued a stopgap live album,The Mark,Tom,and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!),displaying more of their high-energy antics,in November 2000.
Recording and production
Pre-production
The band began pre-production in December 2000,using ideas they had been developing on the road over the past year.[23] DeLonge joked to a BBC reporter that the material may not be so fresh:"About this time in our careers we start running out of guitar riffs and ideas,so we start pulling out of the archives," he laughed.[24] They recorded demos at DML Studios,a small practice studio in Escondido,California,where the band had written Dude Ranch and Enema of the State.[2] The group had written a dozen songs after three weeks and invited their manager,Rick DeVoe,to be the first person outside Blink-182 to hear the new material,which the band found "catchy [but with] a definitive edge".[1][2][25] DeVoe sat in the control room and quietly listened to the recordings,and pressed the band at the end on why there was no "Blink-182 good-time summer anthem [thing]". DeLonge and Hoppus were furious,remarking,"You want a fucking single? I'll write you the cheesiest,catchiest,throwaway fucking summertime single you've ever heard!"[26] Hoppus went home and wrote lead single "The Rock Show" in ten minutes,and DeLonge similarly wrote "First Date",which became the most successful singles from the record and future live staples.[25] Hoppus likened it to "anti-thought",with the goal of not overthinking it —simply making something friendly and enjoyable for a wide audience. "In a way,they ended up being the most fun," he conceded.[15]
The three worked on the arrangements for those two songs at Barker's Famous Stars and Straps warehouse.[27] Barker also proposed being promoted to official partner in the band;prior to 2001,he had been considered a touring musician only,and while he had arranged the songs on Enema,he received no publishingresiduals. Hoppus and DeLonge obliged —they wanted his input on songwriting.[28] Finn came into the process during the last week of pre-production,and was very fond of Barker's drum parts,which the other musicians found unconventional and "algebraic".[23] Barker remembered going into the process was intimidating but exciting:"We had a lot more pressure on that album than we did before,when nobody seemed to be paying attention. We had this huge success,but that just made us feel like we had something to prove. Instead of saying,'Let's write some simple songs that will be huge,' we thought we'd try something more technical and darker. We wanted to be taken seriously,and we wanted to challenge ourselves."[28]
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket was recorded between December 2000 and March 2001. The band began proper tracking for drums not long after pre-production at Larrabee Studios West and Cello Studios in Hollywood. The working relationship with producer Jerry Finn had been so fruitful that the same team was largely engaged for Take Off Your Pants and Jacket,with Finn producing and Joe McGrath engineering.[29] Barker recorded his drum parts in "two or three days" while DeLonge and Hoppus watched television upstairs.[2] Barker recorded the songs from memory with no scratch tracks,largely in one take;[23]Take Off was the first time he enabled a click track while recording to ensure timing.[30] When the drums were finished,the band returned to San Diego to record the majority of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket at Signature Sound,where they had also recorded its predecessor. While the band worked with few days off,the sessions also proved to be memorable:"We took long dinner breaks,ate Sombrero burritos,watched Family Guy and Mr. Show,and laughed way too hard," said Hoppus.[2] When MCA Records executives traveled to San Diego to hear the highly anticipated follow-up,the trio only played them joke songs—"Fuck a Dog" and "When You Fucked Hitler" (the subject of which later changed to a grandfather)—and the team responded incredulously:"[they] lost it," said DeLonge.[31][32] MCA put pressure on the band to maintain the sound that made Enema of the State sell millions;as a result,DeLonge believed the album took no "creative leaps [or] bounds."[31] As such,DeLonge felt creatively stifled and was privately "bummed out" with the label's limitations.[31][33]
In 2013,Hoppus referred to Take Off Your Pants and Jacket as the "permanent record of a band in transition... our confused,contentious,brilliant,painful,cathartic leap into the unknown."[2][13] The creative struggle was evident from the outset. Hoppus loved everything regarding Enema of the State—including the music videos and live show—and "wanted to do it again," hoping to create a bigger,better and louder follow-up.[2] DeLonge's guitar style was becoming dirtier and heavier;Arpeggiated guitar hooks became frenetic 1/16th note spasms," observed Hoppus.[2] Meanwhile,drummer Travis Barker's were imbued a sense of hip hop and heavy metal into his technique.[2][13] Hoppus felt his lyricism was largely darker and more introspective:"love songs became broken love songs," he remembered.[2][13] DeLonge rewrote some of his lyrics after listening to songs by Alkaline Trio,feeling as though he needed to elevate himself.[34] Hoppus remembered that it was the first time the three had worked in opposition to one another,and noted that the sessions sometimes prompted arguments.[13][35] He felt that the sessions created an unspoken competition between him and DeLonge,between who could write the superior lyrics:"Our confidence and insecurity begat some heated differences,sometime to the point where we had to leave rooms and cool down," he said in 2013.[2] Finn helped to resolve these situations by offering fresh insights and good humor.[2]
The band wrote two more songs in the studio;for these songs,Barker looped and filtered his parts and recorded the live drums after the fact.[23] One of these songs became the single "Stay Together for the Kids",which was developed only one day before the album was turned over for mixing.[28]
Technical
The engineering and post-production team behind Jacket remains largely unchanged from its predecessor. Finn and McGrath,exacting in acquiring the best sound,took two days to assess microphone placement,different compressors,and shifting EQs before committing Barker's drums to tape.[2] Barker had technician Mike Fasano sit in and complete the drum tuning because he disliked waiting for Finn and his team.[23] It was the last Blink album recorded on analogue tape;their next effort involved the emerging Pro Tools software.[36] On the technical side,all of the vocals were recorded with Blue's Bottle condenser tube microphone.[37] DeLonge augments his guitar setup with chorus pedals,flangers and delays –"just really light,tasteful touches",he felt.[31] Barker used a variety of snare drums in his process,which he tuned tightly to his liking;the album uses brands like Ludwig Coliseum and Brady,and many came from Orange County Drum and Percussion. He liked using different snares to match what he felt the song required. To that end,the team rented a Tama snare called "Big Red" that Guns N' Roses used to make "November Rain".[23]
According an EQ piece published after the album's release,Finn was so meticulous in quality that he A/B testedspeaker wire from an independent hi-fi shop.[37] Hoppus grew wary of the painstaking approach:"You go out and spend [hundreds of thousands of dollars] on the best recording equipment in the world just to record onto tape how bad of a musician you really are."[24]Roger Joseph Manning,Jr. returns to add keyboard parts,while Tom Lord-Alge served as the mixing engineer,which was conducted at Encore Studios in Burbank. He typically worked out of his Miami space,but the band had him mix the album in California instead.[23] The band also returned to work with Brian Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood.[2] A writer for EQ magazine profiling Finn was present at the mastering session and characterized the atmosphere as "easygoing,the band was relaxed."[37]
Packaging
Each icon represents a song title;icon three is a condom,humorously representing the album's third track,"First Date".
The title is a tongue-in-cheekpun on male masturbation ("take off your pants and jack it"). Previous titles had included EpilepticProctologist,[38]If You See Kay (a pun on the spelling of "fuck") and Genital Ben,accompanied by a bear on the cover of the album.[1] Stressed at being at a loss for a name,DeLonge asked guitar tech Larry Palm for suggestions.[1] The album's title was coined by Palm,who was snowboarding on a rainy day. Inside the lodge,Palm was congregating with friends when a young kid walked in completely drenched,to which his mother suggested he "take off [his] pants and jacket."[1] Palm was told by DeLonge that if the band were to use the name,he would "hook him up".[39] Instead,Palm received a letter from manager Rick DeVoe for his contribution,which offered a $500 payout for the name. Palm scoffed at the amount,and filed suit in 2003 with the intellectual property attorney Ralph Loeb,alleging breach of contract and fraud against the band.[39] Palm demanded $20,000;the band eventually settled out of court for $10,000.[39] Journalist Joe Shooman called the title "a glint of sharp intelligence behind the boys' humour as it draws oblique attention to the fact that,latterly,Blink-182 had often been encouraged to get naked in order to promote themselves. It's a very self-aware album title in that context and a portent,perhaps,of what was to come".[29]
The cover has three "Zoso-like"[40] icons for each band member:a jacket,a pair of pants and an airplane. Delonge and Hoppus' symbols became the pants and jacket,respectively,leaving Barker the airplane despite begging his bandmates not to assign him the symbol,citing his fear of flying,[41] but he took it anyway.[28] CD copies of the album were initially released in three separate configurations for the first million printings:[1] the "red plane",the "yellow pants" and the "green jacket" editions. Each release contained two separate bonus tracks,ranging from joke tracks to outtakes. The only outward signs to differentiate the three editions were three stickers.[32] The concept was inspired by NOFX's Punk in Drublic,which had varying tracks on its corresponding cassette and CD versions.[38] The idea was for each fan of the band to receive something special on their copy that they could then share with their friends.[1] Executives hoped to market the three editions separately in order to boost sales ("buy all three"),but the band argued strongly against this tactic as they felt it was predatory to their fans.[38] The multiple bonus-track versions were only available for a limited time before being replaced by an edition without any bonus tracks.[32]
Composition
Tom DeLonge's guitar style becomes heavier on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.
While Take Off Your Pants and Jacket fits squarely within the band's "commercial and conventional"[26]pop-punk mold,[42][43] it quietly introduces disparate elements into the band's sound. It ranges from bracingly fast-paced numbers to slower,more emo-indebted songs.[1] Hoppus felt it was a "darker,harder album that pushed the boundaries of what blink-182 could do."[44] Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant said the album boasts "tight little anthems,with precision playing,staccato lyrics and sing-along choruses."[45] Joshua Klein from The Washington Post described its familiar "sturdy pop elements —chiming guitars,exciting drums,endearing vocals and ear-catching chord changes."[46]
DeLonge's droning guitar style was influenced by post-hardcore bands Fugazi and Refused.[1] "As Blink grew,I wanted to contribute progressive elements:bring some modernism into the band and change what everyone thought we were capable of," DeLonge said.[47] Part of that stemmed from the band's desire to illustrate they were not a boy band,as they felt had been marketed.[48] Additionally,DeLonge's adenoidal vocal twang,with its "cartoonish California diction",is prominent.[49] Barker's drumming is more technical than before;"Don't Tell Me It's Over" uses an Afro-Cubanbass drum and hi-hat pattern,[50][23] and another song takes the beat from James Brown's "Funky Drummer". One song that developed midway through recording used looping for a danceable drum 'n' bass style.[23] Barker used these affectations to differentiate the band from the rest of the pop-punk pack:"Every punk rock band sounds recycled," he confided to Modern Drummer in 2001. "It's the same recycled beats. Believe me,I know where you took that fill from. I'm trying to bring more to the table."[23]
Songs
I lived, ate, and breathed skateboarding. All I did all day long was skateboard. It was all I cared about. So I didn't notice too much [else going on]. When I got home [one] day, my dad's furniture was gone, my mom was inside crying and everything just erupted at that point. I was 18, sitting in my driveway when it all went down. So I just took everything from that day and put it into a song.
Bassist Mark Hoppus called "Everytime I Look for You" the most obvious combination of the band's disparate elements, including "distorted drone guitar, poppier verses and chorus, [and] punk to bombastic [drums]."[2]
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket has been called a concept album chronicling adolescence and associated feelings.[53] The band did not consider them explicitly teenage songs: "The things that happen to you in high school are the same things that happen your entire life," said Hoppus. "You can fall in love at sixty; you can get rejected at eighty."[52][54] The record begins with "Anthem Part Two", which touches on disenchantment and blames adults for teenage problems.[55] It serves as the opposite of the band's typical "party" image presented to the media, with heavily politically-charged lyrics.[56] Joe Shooman called it a "generational manifesto that exhorts kids to be wary of the system that surrounds them".[56] "Online Songs" was written by Hoppus about "the thoughts that drive you crazy" in the aftermath of a breakup, and is essentially a follow-up to "Josie", who's name is dropped at the beginning of the song.[56][57] "First Date" was inspired by DeLonge and then wife Jennifer Jenkins' first date at SeaWorld in San Diego.[25] "I was about 21 at the time and it was an excuse for me to take her somewhere because I wanted to hang out with her," said DeLonge. The track was written as a summary of neurotic teen angst and awkwardness.[25] "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" is a joke track intended to "piss parents off."[57] The fifth track, "Story of a Lonely Guy", concerns heartache and rejection prior to the high school prom.[13][57] The song is downbeat and melancholy, filtered through "tuneful guitar lines reminiscent of the Cure and hefty drum patterns".[56]
The following track, "The Rock Show", is the opposite: an upbeat "effervescent celebration of love, life and music". It was written as a "fast punk-rock love song" in the vein of the Ramones and Screeching Weasel.[58] The song tells the story of two teenagers meeting a rock concert, and, despite failing grades and disapproving parents, falling and staying in love.[51] It was inspired by the band's early days in San Diego's all-ages venue SOMA.[57] The dysfunctional "Stay Together for the Kids" follows and is written about divorce from the point of view of a helpless child.[45][50] Inspired by DeLonge's parents' divorce, it is one of the band's darker songs.[13][51] "Roller Coaster" was written when Hoppus had a nightmare when he and his wife, Skye, first began dating; the song is about finding something ideal but fearing for its certain departure.[50] "Reckless Abandon" was penned by DeLonge as a reflection on summer memories, including parties, skateboarding and trips to the beach.[57] "Everytime I Look for You" has no specific lyrical basis, according to Hoppus, and "Give Me One Good Reason" was written about punk music and nonconformity in a high school setting.[57]Spin columnist Tim Coffman called it "practically a pop-punk answer to "Come On Eileen" [...] "Many of the great pop-punk songs are about rallying against your parents. No one really talked about what to do once the rebellion was over, though."[59] "Shut Up", a "broken-family snapshot", revisits the territory of youthful woes, described by Shooman as a "fairly familiar rites-of-passage tale" that "adds to general themes of isolation, alienation and moving on to a new place that pervade Take Off Your Pants and Jacket".[54][60] "Please Take Me Home" concludes the standard edition of the album and was written about the consequences of a friendship developing into a relationship.[13][57]
Several bonus tracks follow on separate editions; some continue the teenage theme, while others are joke tracks. Notably, "What Went Wrong" is an acoustic track; while DeLonge felt "staple acoustic songs" were big for groups at the time (such as Green Day's "Good Riddance"), the band wrote all of their songs from their inception on acoustic guitars, and he felt he would rather have "What Went Wrong" in its original form.[50] "You grow up and realize, 'Fuck! Who gives a fuck about punk rock?'" he said. "There are so many great forms of music out there, and you grow beyond wanting to listen to or write something because your parents will hate it."[50] Producer Jerry Finn suggested lyrics for the song after viewing a documentary on the first Sovietnuclear test; in the film, an aged Soviet physicist says of watching the explosion, "There was a loud boom, and then the bomb began fiercely kicking at the world."[50]
Promotion
To promote Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, Pictures HI-FI, MCA Records released three singles: "The Rock Show", "First Date" and "Stay Together for the Kids", all of which were top-ten hits on Billboard'sModern Rock Tracks chart. The band recorded a television commercial for the LP, starring Hoppus as a proctologist and Barker as his patient.[61] Blink-182 performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien in support of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.[29] The band also appeared in a MADtv sketch, in which the trio stars as misfits in an all-American 1950s family in a parody Leave It to Beaver.[62] The trio also sanctioned a band biography, Tales from Beneath Your Mom (2001), which was written by the trio and Anne Hoppus (sister of Mark Hoppus).[62]
Additionally, the band undertook a series of in-store CD signings, at chains like Tower Records and CD World. They also stopped by mom-and-pop record shops, as part of a targeted campaign to "game" the charts to win a number-one debut. "The way album sales were measured, you had to spread them out. Some sales were weighted more than others. [...] It was a whole complicated system that every label was trying to game, but it’s how you got the numbers," Hoppus remembered in his book.[15] The band continued to partner with MTV, making several appearances on Total Request Live; Hoppus guest-hosted the 2001 MTV Movie Awards Pre-Show with Beyoncé.[63]
Commercial performance
Blink-182 presented with their Canadian double platinum plaques for "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket".
Take Off was a marquee rock release of the season,[64] alongside acts like Staind and Tool;[65] writer Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times viewed it an "unlikely modern-rock radio blockbuster in an era otherwise dominated by vapid nu-metal."[66] Like many high profile releases of the era, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket was leaked on the Internet prior to release. The album's leak is mentioned in the book How Music Got Free, which profiles the warez groupRabid Neurosis, as well as the North Carolina CD manufacturing facility from which the album leaked.[67]Steven Hyden, in a piece for Uproxx, recounts its leak in the context of record company greed, opining that "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket is a particularly apt signifier of this unceremonious crash-and-burn climax to a depraved and decadent time."[68]
At any rate, the assured success allowed the band, according to Brittany Spanos at Rolling Stone to "fully settle into their status as one of the biggest rock bands in the world."[69] "There's nowhere to go but down," Hoppus joked.[70] In an attempt to game the charts, Blink-182 did dozens of CD signings in the week of its release, at large chains like Tower Records.[15] Upon its official June 2001 bow,[71] the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 350,000 copies. Billboard attributed the success of the record overall as a result of the success of the first single, "The Rock Show".[72] The album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 47,390 copies.[73] It also reached number one on Germany's Top 100 Albums.[74] The album was the first album by a punk rock band to debut at number one in the United States.[2][13] The record shipped enough units to be certified platinum, and it sold through those million copies by August.[75] It was later certified double platinum in May 2002.[76] It had moved three million units worldwide by December.[77]Take Off Your Pants and Jacket is the second-highest selling album in the band's catalogue,[78] and has sold over 14 million copies worldwide.[79]
Critical reception of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket in 2001 was generally positive. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone was generally the most effusive of the positive reviews, praising the unpretentious attitude of the band: "As they plow in their relatively un-self-conscious way through the emotional hurdles of lust, terror, pain and rage, they reveal more about themselves and their audience than they even intend to, turning adolescent malaise into a friendly joke rather than a spiritual crisis."[60] Darren Ratner of AllMusic felt likewise, writing that the record is "one of their finest works to date, with almost every track sporting a commanding articulation and new-school punk sounds. They've definitely put a big-time notch in the win column".[82]People commended the "adrenaline-laced sonic gems reveling in Blink's patented, potty-mouthed humor, recommended only for adolescents of all ages".[89] British publication Q offered the sentiment that "when they stop arsing around for the sake of it, Blink-182 write some very good pop songs".[84]
The Village Voice called the sound "emo-core... intercut with elegiac little pauses that align Blink 182 with a branch of punk rock you could trace back through The Replacements and Ramones Leave Home, to the more ethereal of early Who songs".[71] Aaron Scott of Slant Magazine, however, found the sound to be recycled from the band's previous efforts, writing, "Blink shines when they deviate from their formula, but it is awfully rare... The album seems to be more concerned with maintaining the band's large teenage fanbase than with expanding their overall audience."[86] Joshua Klein from The Washington Post felt it was stagnant, critiquing its formula and "cookie-cutter" approach.[46]Kerrang!'s Ian Fortnam critiqued its lack of risks, its "money-in-the-bank commercialism. [It's] eminently hummable dummy-spitting tantrum rock for the emo generation."[90]Entertainment Weekly felt similarly, with David Browne opining that "the album is angrier and more teeth gnashing than you'd expect. The band work so hard at it, and the music is such processed sounding mainstream rock played fast, that the album becomes a paradox: adolescent energy and rebellion made joyless".[83] British magazine New Musical Express, who heavily criticized the band in their previous efforts, felt no more negative this time, saying "Blink-182 are now indistinguishable from the increasingly tedious 'teenage dirtbag' genre they helped spawn". The magazine continued, "It sounds like all that sanitised, castrated, shrink-wrapped 'new wave' crap that the major US record companies pumped out circa 1981 in their belated attempt to jump on the 'punk' bandwagon."[91]
More recent reviews have subsequently been positive. Music critic Kelefa Sanneh complimented the album in a New Yorker profile: "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket is by turns peppy, sulky, and stupid—Blink-182 at its finest."[92] Website AbsolutePunk, in part of their "Retro Reviews" project in 2011, called Take Off Your Pants and Jacket the band's best effort; reviewer Thomas Nassiff referred to it as "a transitory record for Blink-182, but you can't tell just by listening to it on its own. It's developed and it's full – it feels holistically complete, dick jokes and all".[81] In 2005, the album was ranked number 452 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.[93] in 2021, Stereogum's Grant Sharples felt it improved on its predecessor; "it's an endearing time capsule [...] replete with refined songwriting and incredibly infectious hooks."[94] Richard Blenkinsop of Reverb.com called the album "a masterclass in pop punk writing."[95] Conversely, Hyden, in the aforementioned Uproxx article, suggests the album is middling: "[Take Off] had some hits but [is] also a record no fan would ever consider their best work."[68]
The Take Off Your Pants and Jacket supporting tour began in April 2001 in Australia and New Zealand.[29] Afterwards, the band played two weeks of club shows at small venues across America in an effort to decrease ticket prices and get back to their roots.[24] The band returned to the US to promote their new record on the Late Show with David Letterman in June 2001.[29] Afterwards, the band set out on the 2001 Honda Civic Tour with No Motiv, Sum 41, the Ataris, and Bodyjar, for which the trio designed a Honda Civic to promote the company.[97] The band again received criticism for "selling out", but the band argued by way of mitigation that their tickets were consistently offered at lower prices than those of other groups of their stature, and by accepting corporate links they could continue to give fans a good deal.[98] Likewise, the band partnered with Ticketmaster, setting up a special website where fans could purchase pre-sale tickets for each show.[99]
The main headlining tour visited arenas and amphitheaters between July and August 2001, and was supported by New Found Glory,[99]Jimmy Eat World, Alkaline Trio[100] and Midtown. Each show winkingly began with the overture of "Also sprach Zarathustra" and debuted a flaming sign reading "FUCK".[101] The band had initially contacted Eminem in hopes of partnering for a tour, but he was too busy. For Barker, he would have preferred to tour with a stylistically different artist: "If it was my choice, we wouldn't tour with other punk bands," he said in 2001.[23] In December 2001, the trio played at a series of radio-sponsored holiday concerts—which Barker liked because of their variety—and also appeared as presenters at the 2001 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas.[102] The band rescheduled European tour dates in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. "After the attacks the world kind of went into freeze mode and we didn't know whether to carry on with things or not... so we decided we'd rather everyone was safe and play the shows a little later instead," said Hoppus shortly thereafter.[103] In the wake of the tragedy, the band draped an American flag over a set of amplifiers and drummer Barker played on a red, white, and blue drum kit. At one concert, DeLonge invited the crowd to join him in his cheers of "Fuck Osama bin Laden!"[104] The European dates were canceled a second time after DeLonge suffered a herniated disc in his back.[105]
In 2002, the band co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Green Day. The tour was conceived by Blink-182 to echo the famous Monsters of Rock tours; the idea was to have, effectively, a Monsters of Punk tour.[106] The tour, from the band's point of view, had been put together as a show of unity in the face of consistent accusations of rivalry between the two bands, especially in Europe.[107] Instead, Green Day's Tré Cool acknowledged in a Kerrang! interview that they committed to the tour as an opportunity to regain their reputation as a great live band, as they felt their spotlight had faded over the years.[107] "We set out to reclaim our throne as the most incredible live punk band from you know who," said Cool.[108] Cool contended that "we heard they were going to quit the tour because they were getting smoked so badly... We didn't want them to quit the tour. They're good for filling up the seats up front."[108] Several reviewers were unimpressed with Blink-182's headlining set following Green Day. "Sometimes playing last at a rock show is more a curse than a privilege... Pity the headliner, for instance, that gets blown off the stage by the band before it. Blink-182 endured that indignity Saturday at the Shoreline Amphitheatre," a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in 2002.[109]
It also marked a transitionary period in the group, being the first time the trio began to fracture. Shortly after the album's release, the 9/11 attacks prompted a pause in the band's schedule, which led DeLonge to explore a slower, more heavy musical style—which became the album Box Car Racer (2002). Blink producer Jerry Finn naturally returned to engineer, and DeLonge, ostensibly trying to avoid paying a session player,[33] invited Barker to record drums—making Hoppus the odd man out. It marked a major rift in their friendship: while DeLonge claimed he was not intentionally omitted, Hoppus nonetheless felt betrayed.[33] "At the end of 2001, it felt like Blink-182 had broken up. It wasn't spoken about, but it felt over", said Hoppus later.[128]
On the clean version of the album the track "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" is listed as just "Happy Holidays", and is an instrumental with the exception of the very last line, due to nearly every other line containing strong language and/or crude sexual references.
On the limited edition bonus track versions, "Please Take Me Home" has 182 seconds (roughly 3 minutes) of silence at the end, likely to hide the hidden tracks, which are not listed on the back cover, and also to reference the band's name.
The clean version omits the second bonus track on each edition.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
↑ Diehl, Matt (April 17, 2007). My So-Called Punk: Green Day, Fall Out Boy, The Distillers, Bad Religion – How Neo-Punk Stage-Dived into the Mainstream. St. Martin's Griffin. pp.75–76. ISBN978-0-312-33781-0.
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