Blink-182 — All the Small Things
The perfect parody disguised as a perfect pop song. Blink-182 conquered TRL and the Billboard Hot 100 by mocking the very boy-band videos they shared the countdown with, with a "na-na-na-na" hook so contagious it rewired a million brains. Won Best Group Video at the 2000 MTV VMAs and became the guitar riff every beginner learned.
Released on September 28, 1999, as the second single from Enema of the State, "All the Small Things" was written by Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus and became the band's biggest hit by a mile. It climbed to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2000, topped the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and finished the year at No. 40 on the year-end Hot 100—rarefied air for a three-piece punk band from the San Diego suburbs.
The Marcos Siega music video is a frame-by-frame homage to—and merciless parody of—the boy-band aesthetic that ruled TRL in 1999. It references the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," NSYNC's choreography, 98 Degrees' harmonies, Britney Spears' "Sometimes," and Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle," with blink-182 mugging their way through beach shoots, synchronized dancing, and every cliché of manufactured teen pop. The song itself is a melodic ringer—a guitar riff that feels inevitable once you've heard it, a chorus built for singalongs, the "na-na-na-na" designed to colonize your brain.
The genius was in the timing and the timing was perfect: a punk band winning at the pop-music game by making fun of it. "All the Small Things" aired alongside the earnest videos it parodied, sometimes back-to-back on MTV, and viewers couldn't help but laugh and then go download the song. By winning Best Group Video at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, blink-182 proved they weren't just mocking boy bands—they were now competitors, and they were winning. Every guitarist ever born learned that riff. The song became a rite of passage, the punchline that wouldn't stop getting funnier.
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