Les Cousins Dangereux – Enema of the State
10.15.18 by Ryan Masteller

It was inevitable that I was gonna have to write about this. It just seems … appropriate in some way.

(Poop jokes. Always poop jokes.)

Blink’s “Enema” came out when I was in college, so I thought it was all right then. I mean, I didn’t listen to it very much. I had friends who liked it a lot better. I guess it’s catchy, but man, I do NOT look back fondly at it. It is a relic, an example of music from my past that I find embarrassing. I will never willingly return to it.

Gosh, this writeup isn’t looking to kindly on our hero, Tim Thornton, is it?

Tim originally dropped this album-length cover version of “Enema of the State” as Les Cousins Dangereux back in 2011 through his Suite 309 label. The original format was something called a “CDR,” but he’s now issued it on cassette with an extra track (a cover of Weezer’s “No One Else” that was planned for a follow-up release that never materialized). But let’s set the record straight: Tim’s “Enema” is waaaay more ingestible than Blink’s “Enema,” and that’s even before you realize it’s an aural supplement and not a suppository.

Tim buries the dumbassery of Blink tunes like “Dumpweed” and “Dysentery Gary” (to name but two classics) under alien video-game soundtracks, dashing headlong with bleeps and bloops instead of guitars. (Also, Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus do not appear in any way, shape, or form, and that’s a plus for me.) “Enema+” is like chiptune gone wild, sort of, mainly because it reminds me of that one chiptune artist who released a bunch of new wave covers around the same time (but I forget who it was). With it, though, I can pretend that I’m the hero of some arcade side-scroller who has to destroy the Blink boys at the end of the tape in order to restore order to the universe, freeing the melodies of the album from their constraints of stupidity.

Which Tim has sort of already done.

Anyway, whether you love the original “Enema of the State” or hate its guts to hell, the Les Cousins Dangereux version is simply better. Buy one, won’t you, from Suite-309? Edition of 50.