I Miss the Tom DeLonge Twang
Ask a Blink-182 fan to explain the band’s appeal and they’ll probably talk about the pop-punk trio’s ability to capture teenage angst, or their insanely catchy harmonies, or something about running through the streets naked. Among the most crucial components, though, was guitarist Tom DeLonge’s vocal approach, or what I affectionately refer to as the Tom DeLonge Twang. The Tom DeLonge Twang contorted words like “things” (“theeeengs”) and “my head” (“myy’eaad”) into a cartoonish California diction. It imagined a feeling of eternal puberty. It had the energy of a congested nasal passage, a breathy sigh, a hocked loogie, an exaggerated wink, an armpit fart.
I’m writing this in the past tense because, unfortunately, the Tom DeLonge Twang has finally twung its course. Fans first clocked its disappearance on the group’s 2022 comeback single “Edging,” which marked DeLonge’s long-anticipated return to Blink after leaving the group in 2015. The Twang was absent once again during the trio’s performance at Coachella in April, DeLonge’s patented wail newly deep and warbly. By the time they released their just-passable new album One More Time… in October, he sounded stiff. His enunciation didn’t twist and curl in the way it used to. His lyrics no longer felt like inside jokes. He was playing it straight.
I had been excited about DeLonge reuniting with Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker. But after hearing the new album, I’ve considered that maybe it’s best to remember them as they were. In the late ’90s and early ’00s, the TDT stood out in a sea of no-nonsense radio vocals, from gruff tough-and-masculine butt-rockers like Chad Kroeger and Scott Stapp; raspy, slurring blasé bad boys like Julian Casablancas and the Gallagher twins; and moody, sometimes shouty singers like Dave Grohl. DeLonge was drawing from a rich tradition of good-“bad” singers who prioritize emotion over technical skill. And fans ate it up. “I never learned how to sing, so I was always trying to sing like the Descendents,” DeLonge told Rolling Stone in 2019. “I’m not even a good singer. I’m just a little punk kid.”
The Descendents are an apt comparison; the Twang sounded like Milo Aukerman after taking a hit of helium. You can first hear hints of it on Blink’s 1995 debut Cheshire Cat, where DeLonge’s voice was squeaking into place, confident and free from the fear of sounding juvenile. It came into further focus on 1997’s Dude Ranch, as he was found “newwwd in a guhttur” on “Degenerate,” and cursed his mom for grounding him with “nah-thing to duh-oo-oo” on “Dick Lips.” By 1999’s mainstream breakout Enema of the State and follow-up Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, the Twang was in full effect — “gotta lawtta hartayyyyche” from “Dysentery Gary”; “Do you laaaike my stupid haayyr?” and “Is it kewwwl if I hohld yor hehh-nd?” on “First Date” — with DeLonge reshaping words and stretching syllables until they suited him. Clean production from Jerry Finn, who had worked with punk bands like Jawbreaker and mainstream crossover acts like Green Day and Goo Goo Dolls, made the Twang just pop-friendly enough to work on radio — an approach Finn continued on Pants and Jacket, the last album to feature an unvarnished TDT.
I suppose nothing good can Twang forever. In 2015, DeLonge had changed his tune completely. The TDT had already lost a glimmer of innocence on 2003’s self-titled release and 2012’s Neighborhood. Now it would be put on pause, as DeLonge left Blink-182 over alleged creative differences and developed a separate sound with a group called Angels & Airwaves. “Rather than nasally staccato, it became more like violin, more like a stringed instrument,” he told Rolling Stone about his new vocal approach. “It’s the only way I know how to sing now” — which DeLonge further confirmed when the trio reunited seven years later. On One More Time…, the Twang had fallen into an uncanny valley, as if DeLonge were singing in a Blink-182 cover band. His voice was pitched up and modulated, the enunciation clearer. He seemed both unable and uninterested in voicing the childish character he once played, tempering expectations for their upcoming 2024 tour.
Which came first, the degrading quality of a Blink-182 song or the disappearance of Tom’s Twang? The jury’s still out. Perhaps the loss of the TDT was inevitable. A crude, boyish charm is a lot to muster as a 47-year-old man. And DeLonge shouldn’t have to recapture his youth just to satisfy my nostalgia (Well, I guess this is growing up, as they say.) Still, I miss it all the same — a pitch that would make Alvin and the Chipmunks blush, a vowel juiced for all its worth, how it all felt perfectly in tune with an era when Jackass cast members punched each other in the balls on MTV and sex comedies like American Pie were pop-culture touchstones. Blink might put out another good album. They might not. But until the old Twang is relegated to golden oldies radio, it will live on in myy’eaad.
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