If the bassline on Blink-182's classic "Carousel" isn't inspired, if not stolen outright, from the main guitar riff on The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," then I am either insane or proving that there is a limited number of things that can be done with a guitar. Well, I'm pretty sure I'm insane regardless.
There is a very good chance I'm completely insane, but at 9:00 this morning, after three cups of coffee, when this song came on the shuffle, all I heard was The Cure's biggest hit. (And I heard The Cure's version, despite my preference for the Dinosaur Jr. version because, on the whole, I'd rather listen to Dinosaur Jr. That's another story though.)
That it's taken me 15 years to notice is a little disappointing, because I should have noticed earlier. Finding a similarity to a huge pop song, however, does not surprise me. In the early days, Blink was writing punk songs just poppy enough to lure in everybody who heard them. Literally everybody loved Cheshire Cat.
Listening to that album now, it's no shock that two albums later, or three, at the most, Blink-182 would be one of the biggest bands in the world. Their lasting influence wasn't as predictable as, say, Green Day's 90s heyday, but the celebration upon their return last year proves that Mark, Tom and Travis were somewhat underestimated 10 or 15 years ago.
The other thing worth noting, especially about Cheshire Cat, if not the other albums, which I unabashedly embrace because they too were part of my teenage and college soundtrack, is that even the most elitist punk fan will admit that they cannot kill the soft spot they've got for that one album. No matter how hard they try to kill it, "M&Ms," "Strings," "Ben Wah Balls" and "Carousel" (and the rest of the album) got stuck in their heads at some point and get them excited on the off chance they hear them now.
Buy Blink-182's Cheshire Cat from Shockhound.
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