| length = 38:54
| label = MCA
| producer = Jerry Finn
| prev_title = The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!)
| prev_year = 2000
| next_title = Blink-182
| next_year = 2003
| misc =
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. Nearly a decade deep in their career, Blink-182 had reached mainstream, multiplatinum heights with their previous album, Enema of the State (1999). The trio—guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Travis Barker—became worldwide stars and MTV staples, with their goofy, boy-band image cementing their place in pop culture. The band continued its partnership with producer Jerry Finn to record the majority of the album in their hometown of San Diego. Its title is a double entendre ("take off your pants and jack it").
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket reflects a band in transition – marked by evolving styles and personal friction – with the trio split on its direction. It was made while grappling with creative burnout and industry demands, with their label pushing them to meet its deadlines and expectations. The resulting album mainly stays true to their polished pop-punk style, with its crowd-pleasing anthems subtly expanding the band's palette with post-hardcore tones and emo touches. Its lyrics chronicle adolescence, with songs dedicated to the prom, fighting authority, and teenage parties. As part of its rollout, the band adopted more mature branding, reflecting a growing desire to evolve artistically and shed their silly reputation.
Upon its release, Take Off was a modern rock blockbuster, becoming the first punk album to hit number one in the U.S., and selling over 14 million copies globally. It produced three hit singles—"The Rock Show", "Stay Together for the Kids", and "First Date". The CD release featured three collectible versions, each with unique bonus tracks and band-member icons. Critics generally complimented its expansion on teenage themes, while others viewed it as its weakness. To support the album, the band co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Green Day. A Y2K-era record, Take Off was part of a wave of a loud, and irreverent pop-punk that critics and musicians alike have cited as a lasting influence.
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). It became an enormous worldwide success, moving over fifteen million copies. 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. 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." The glossy production set Blink-182 apart from the other crossover punk acts of the era, such as Green Day, and this style and sound made for an extensive impact that permeated its way through the Southern California punk scene and beyond, igniting a new wave of the genre.
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. 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.
In the public eye, Blink became known for their juvenile antics, including running around nude; the band made a cameo appearance in the similarly bawdy comedy American Pie (1999). While grateful for their success—which the trio parlayed into various business ventures, like Famous Stars and Straps, Atticus Clothing and Macbeth Footwear—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. 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." 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. 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. 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. 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 publishing residuals. Hoppus and DeLonge obliged – they wanted his input on songwriting. 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". Barker recorded his drum parts in "two or three days" while DeLonge and Hoppus watched television upstairs. 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.
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." 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. 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. On the technical side, all of the vocals were recorded with Blue's Bottle condenser tube microphone. DeLonge augments his guitar setup with chorus pedals, flangers and delays – "just really light, tasteful touches", he felt. Palm demanded $20,000; the band eventually settled out of court for $10,000. 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". 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, but he took it anyway. CD copies of the album were initially released in three separate configurations for the first million printings: The multiple bonus-track versions were only available for a limited time before being replaced by an edition without any bonus tracks.
Composition
thumb|left|200px|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" pop-punk mold, it quietly introduces disparate elements into the band's sound. It ranges from bracingly fast-paced numbers to slower, more emo-indebted songs. Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant said the album boasts "tight little anthems, with precision playing, staccato lyrics and sing-along choruses." Joshua Klein from The Washington Post described its familiar "sturdy pop elements — chiming guitars, exciting drums, endearing vocals and ear-catching chord changes."
DeLonge's droning guitar style was influenced by post-hardcore bands Fugazi and Refused. "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. Part of that stemmed from the band's desire to illustrate they were not a boy band, as they felt had been marketed. Additionally, DeLonge's adenoidal vocal twang, with its "cartoonish California diction", is prominent. Barker's drumming is more technical than before; "Don't Tell Me It's Over" uses an Afro-Cuban bass drum and hi-hat pattern,
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