Folk singer-songwriter Madi Diaz released her seventh album, Fatal Optimist, on October 10, to favorable reviews and praise. While she was recording that album, she was also working on another project that dropped one month later, the week of November 10.
Diaz recorded a track-by-track cover of Blink-182’s album Enema of the State, which became a commercial success in 1999. Titled Enema of the Garden State in reference to the New Jersey studio where Diaz recorded, the cover album is available on Bandcamp.
Initially, Diaz explained on social media, there wasn’t any real reason to cover Enema of the State in its entirety. “It was just pure fun pure joy,” she wrote on Instagram and Bandcamp.
“These recordings started out as a fun light exercise fueled by an eternal love and fandom I have for blink-182 and the record Enema Of The State,” she began. Diaz explained that, while recording the layered and often emotional Fatal Optimist, she would warm up by playing whatever came to mind. After producer Andrew Maury set up the mics and equipment, Diaz would play around and record by herself.
Madi Diaz Explains The Lack of Process Behind Purely Fun ‘Enema of the State’ Cover Album
“I had been listening to this batch of songs obsessively once again (it’s almost a seasonal occurrence with certain records) on my jogs and I wanted to see if I could just run these songs and let the nostalgia drive my memory for the lyrics and tear through a punky acoustic arrangement,” Madi Diaz continued. “No planning, no overthinking, no analyzing allowed, just ripping into the songs. It was just pure fun pure joy.”
She added that initially, there was no plan to release these cover songs. Until recently, that is. What it came down to, Diaz said, was considering the ironic double meaning of the album title and how it relates to today’s political, social, and cultural climate.
“[We thought about] How funny/ridiculous it is to cover this record in 2025 when it feels like we really need to flush the system and give our whole government a health check / gut check,” she wrote, “And as time has gone on it continues to become more and more apparent that we are at a real boiling point.”
Madi Diaz, who mentioned her Danish and Peruvian immigrant family heritage, explained that the idea came to use the playful cover album for a good cause in troubling times. Instead of letting the recordings go to waste, she decided to “use this version of enema of the (garden) state in whatever way we possibly can to raise awareness and money for people in need of defense and aid in their right to live and work and breathe and be and stay on American soil.”
All Sales of ‘Enema Of The Garden State’ Will Benefit Aid Fund For Immigrant Families
Madi Diaz concluded her announcement of the cover album with details about where the money made from Enema of the Garden State will go. The album starts at $10 on Bandcamp for a digital download, but Bandcamp allows fans to pay extra to the artist if they choose.
“[E]very penny [the album] generates will go to Defending Our Neighbors Fund,” Diaz wrote. “This will help give immigrant families, adults, young children, and so many of those in need of advocates, access to resources through this support system. They are providing immediate grants for trusted organizations to deploy legal advice and bond assistance.”
Diaz thanked fans for listening and added, “For me, it’s become about so much more than just a nostalgia for teenage rebellion against mom and dad. F*** ICE. Enema Of The State Forever.”
Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
The post ‘Enema of the Garden State’: Madi Diaz Covers Blink-182’s 1999 Breakthrough Album in Full appeared first on VICE.
