Every time a pop-emo band tries to evolve, a little piece of me dies. Because what’s the necessity, really? We liked you when you had an upbeat, happily sad song about how your girlfriend cheated on you with your best friend. Heck, we even liked you when you wrote another song about exactly the same topic.
But now you come at us with this incoherent mix of screamo, pop, bad lyrics, and random noise and expect us to swallow it?
By Paul Crossman,
Contributor
Every time a pop-emo band tries to evolve, a little piece of me dies. Because what’s the necessity, really? We liked you when you had an upbeat, happily sad song about how your girlfriend cheated on you with your best friend. Heck, we even liked you when you wrote another song about exactly the same topic.
But now you come at us with this incoherent mix of screamo, pop, bad lyrics, and random noise and expect us to swallow it?
Even from Fall Out Boy, I expected better.
Don’tget me wrong though, none of this can be said to be the fault of the band itself. I mean, they were just following a pre-ordained pattern, which every mediocre pop-punk band since the late �90s has been destined to pursue.
I like to call this pattern the �Good Charlotte.�
It starts with a standard first album – nothing special, but good, with decent lyrics and catchy tunes.
This is then followed up with a second CD, sounding almost exactly like the first except more mainstream, and with less meaningful lyrics. Album number two, of course, immediately jumps to the top of the charts.
Shortly after people stop committing suicide from hearing �Sugar, We�re Goin� Down Swinging� 30 times in a row, the band comes out with yet another CD, showcasing how their music has �changed� since album one.
Fall Out Boy is at precisely this stage in their musical careers. They caught our attention with �Grand Theft utumn,� held it with �Sugar We�re Goin� Down Swinging,� and that annoyingly catchy �Dance Dance,� and finally, just when we thought we were free, they slap us in the face with this.
I don’teven know what the single is off this CD, and truthfully, I really don’tcare.
Every song sounds exactly the same except for the 30-second riff of random noise at the beginning, and it all just leaves me with a ringing in my ears.
Perhaps Fall Out Boy best describes their mediocre new album themselves in track number four, with the line �we�re the new face of failure.�
Yes, yes you are, but don’tworry, you�ll always have the 13-year-old girls.
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