A shout-out to Blink-182
Colleen Green
“Blink-182’s ‘Dude Ranch’ as Played by Colleen Green” (Bandcamp)
In the early ’10s, singer and songwriter Green completed a project that she’d long contemplated: A complete rendition of Blink-182’s third album, “Dude Ranch.” Then her computer crashed and she lost it.
Her commitment to covering what she describes in advance notes as her “favorite album of all time” never waned, though, and she recently unveiled her second attempt at celebrating the poppunk band’s 1997 album — on bass.
Those familiar with Green’s work might be surprised at her choice. Across four full-lengths, she’s mixed Casio-toned postpunk, Ramones-style directness and biting lines about dudes and their issues. But her voice, coupled with bass-only minimalism, transforms Blink-182’s aggro-emo songs about isolation, desire and creepiness. “Crossed the street, naked at night/Bent over to show some moonlight,” she sings in “Degenerate,” one of many songs whose subtext shifts with gender. What in a man’s voice recounts a weird bender, in a woman’s suggests sexual assault. “Pulled out some beer and I gulped it down/Nude in a gutter is how I was found.”
In “Josie,” Green relays, without switching pronouns, lines sung on the original by Blink’s Mark Hoppus: “Yeah, my girlfriend takes collect calls from the road/And it doesn’t seem to matter that I’m lacking in the bulge.”
The woozy new R&B track from the Inglewood crooner takes a lyrical tour of Los Angeles — he calls it taking his city “on a test drive” — as he confesses his hopes, fears and desires, both romantically and professionally. As S.I.R. explains on his Genius page, he wrote it while on tour with labelmates Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock. “I was having trouble with myself and just my confidence. I wrote that for myself, trying to just give myself some motivation.” (Note: The language in the video is NSFW.) It worked. The down-tempo track crawls, but like the hovercraft-Chevy in the track’s video, seems to float effortlessly. As is often the case, when Kendrick Lamar arrives, he pushes “Hair Down” further toward the sublime, rapping of “psychedelic views and infinity pools,” damage fees, gold dust, numerology and anesthesia. At one point he advises on local real estate: “Calabas’ ain’t the move, that’s where everybody live / Plus the mountain is hot — you forgot what you got.”
S.I.R. featuring Kendrick Lamar “Hair Down” (Top Dawg)