My Editor Made Me Change the Length of this Intro So You Wouldn’t Get Bored
Back in 2007, Chicago four-piece Fall Out Boy started their third record with the greatest flex they could have pulled off as poster boys of the scene. It could have been muttered under the breath of lyricist and bassist Pete Wentz, or belted with soulful sincerity by lead singer Patrick Stump as drummer Andy Hurley’s defiant beats lie, waiting to crash through the wings. Yet instead, the twinkle of Joe Trohman’s opening guitar melody was juxtaposed by a declarative statement of intent from none other than Beyonce’s husband himself, the rapping Roc-A-Fella founder and entrepreneurial TITAN… Jay-Z.
That intent has held strong ever since, even as the Fall Out Boy boat has rocked between the reappraised with time Folie a Deux, several superb and sub-par side projects, a rather triumphant post-hiatus return on the feature-filled Save Rock and Roll to chart topping success with Centuries and the marvellous, mad, yet ultimately misguided MANIA. 5 years on and one worldwide pandemonium later, Andy, Joe, Patrick and Pete are back with a new vision and verve on their latest record, So Much (For) Stardust. What would you trade the pain for? I’m not sure…
With attention more finite than ever in a modern rush where bands’ stars crash and burn so often it becomes anticipated to an extreme before anyone has even heard the news, Fall Out Boy waste no time on their latest LP. A grand piano twirls around opulent strings to draw the listener in on album opener and first single, Love From The Other Side. This is the first taste of the Elfmanesque storybook scope that Wentz and Stump are clearly shooting for. By the time Trohman’s raucous riffs and Hurley’s relentless kicks blow you back across the room, Marty McFly style, you’re already prepared to open up the pit or stare towards the heavens, starry eyed, during the beautiful beast of a bridge. Wrigley Field’s finest hometown heroes come out swinging and
Heart Good
Break So
Feels
WOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOO
OHHHHHHHHHOOHOHOHOHOHHOOOOOOOOOO
The hooks on the one-two punch of tracks two and three are undeniable. Stop reading, listen to them just once and tell me you’re not tapping your toes, humming hallelujah or living for the oxymoronic magic that is the lyric “Part time soulmate, full time problem”
You can’t!
Mr. Patrick Martin Stump (full name game in play because I respect him more than I can say) takes the vibrant work he put in on 2011 solo project Soul Punk to give us synth that won’t quit on Heartbreak Feels So Good and hot damn does that bass SLAP as the groove of Hold Me Like A Grudge gets down and dirty. Don’t even get me started on the guitar wails that work their way into your ears like Joe Trohman only knows how.
Fake Out feels like the first breath that …Stardust lets you take. The rhetorical questions Pete Wentz asks on the chorus and the line “Love is in the air, I just gotta figure out a window to break out” ensure this song emerges as a sublime slow burn. If it makes a future setlist, you already know the believers will be pouring out their castle temp red wine in honour of the radio guy who once told Wentz that’s how it should be served.
I feel as though certain descriptive words have had their original meanings dulled through repeated overuse in the past decade and a half (yes I’m an “elder emo” so just let me Abe Simpson ramble for a minute!). I’m telling you this, dear reader, so you know that when I describe Heaven, Iowa as
Epic
I mean that this composition left me in awe. I’m listening to it as I type and I’m checking myself out, saving this all for later because I think it’ll take me the rest of this year to get over how wondrous, expansive and deliciously dramatic Fall Out Boy have grown to be over their twenty year career. The primal, 80s tinged echoes of Andy’s dynamic drums, the way Joe is just let loose to shred as the song builds to its incredible crescendo. This all gathers together to be emotional, over the top and there isn’t a better way to end the first half of the record.*
*This is the small part of the review where I acknowledge that I understand why So Good Right Now is on the album. It’s a fun bop that works on its own, but after back and forth deliberation and multiple listens, I’ve decided that it just doesn’t fit right at the end of Side A. The Little Bitty Pretty One melody is cute, but jarring to the point where yes, lyrically the musical whiplash and song’s message makes sense, but doesn’t work for me personally given where the record goes after the flip.
I first heard The Pink Seashell in a 200 year old, former cinema packed full of 500 ravenous Fall Out Boy fans in a “we’re physically here and we’re still stunned we’re seeing these guys in this tiny room” trance. Pete Wentz introduced the song in his expected art school student style, mentioning that Ethan Hawke was featured on the track. What followed was the instrumental heard on the finished album, but
without the clip of Hawke’s dialogue from the 1994 Gen X cult classic Reality Bites. Wentz then joked that the label had removed the dialogue as they didn’t want the audience hearing the final mix yet. It was then, of course, played at their show in London with Hawke’s musings intact the next night. What this anecdote doesn’t tell you is how affecting I still find this instrumental piece, even though Reality Bites is a film I still haven’t seen, despite being born in the same decade it was released. Is it a bit much? Of course it is! Fall Out Boy have never done anything by half measures and it’s great to hear them still riding that dragon, even eight albums in.
I Am My Own Muse harkens back to the darkness showcased in its raw, punk form on Take This To Your Grave, polished a little more with From Under The Cork Tree closer, XO and then scored with striking strings and horns when the windy city quartet were grateful for the memories. Bombastic, cinematic and malicious with a righteous chorus to match, this is FOB in full-on, villainous solo from a Tim Burton musical mode and now I just want a jukebox Broadway production of it all!
If the previous two tracks were rather over the top for your tastes, Flu Game carves out a place in its world for you and that adolescent part of you that can’t resist joining in with the infectious “na na na” response lines as the song honours Michael Jordan’s insane, illness-ridden Game 5 performance for the Chicago Bulls in ‘97. Where So Good Right Now falters a little, this feels like the all-star player that fought hard for the crown and made it look effortless.
Until your breathing stops forever, Fall Out Boy fans will clamour for Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III to read his poetry without pomp and circumstance. For the uninitiated this will be unfamiliar and weird, but Baby Annihilation cements the album’s themes of faded fame, facades and the pull of yin and yang towards happiness and hurt – symbolised by the half frown, half smile that speaks to the dichotomy and dynamic that Pete, Patrick, Andy and Joe have explored up to now.
To be honest, Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years) speaks to me in ways I don’t feel completely comfortable discussing here. Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold and if you’re like me and you’ve experienced any kind of mental health highs and lows, then you get it. I can’t fathom your journey or the ups and downs of a band that have all spoken about their own demons in their own ways, yet the more I listen to this song, it does help me feel a little better about where I am now, compared to a decade ago. This might not be the music that does it for you, but know it’s out there. If you’re in the chemical haze or fighting to survive your mind, please remember you’re not alone and it can get better with time.
Sometimes you wonder if other people love disco as much as you do, then you cease to care as you make coffee and dance around your kitchen at 8am with What A Time To Be Alive blasting out the bluetooth headphones that hang on your head so you don’t wake your flatmates. That’s the feeling and oh my FUNK does Patrick nail this homage that was brought to the band pre-pandemic as one of Stardust’s earliest demos. You’ll see me going Super Saiyan Saturday Night Fever at a future show if they decide to deliver this terrific throwback track live.
Here we are, the titular and final track on So Much (For) Stardust. I go weak at the knees when the last song on an album brings it all full circle, so I’m not even going to go there. Also, if I pointed out every callback to earlier Fall Out Boy lyrics on this record I would still be writing it by the time they drop album nine. As it should be, this ending is bittersweet, sad strings and minor, persistent piano notes begin this relentless, slow dance with death that’s as triumphant as it is tearing up. This song contains one of my favourite Pete Wentz penned lines ever, and I’m not even going to tell you what it is…
If this is when the party ends for our fear-filled, fearless Fall Out Boys, the flawed, fantastic sprinkle of stardust is more than enough for me.