Fall Out Boy: Folie a Deux Album Review
New Studio Album From Pete Wentz’ Pop-Punk Emo Boys
Dec 28, 2008
Subtlety is not a word in Fall Out Boy’s vocabulary. From Pete Wentz’s clownish, shameless puns and pre-album-launch publicity stunts (involving wife Ashlee Simpson, and planned with disturbing military-style precision), to Patrick Stump’s enormous bubblegum punk vocals, Folie a Deux carries big sounds and big statements. Moreover it makes no apologies: “Hell or Glory / I don’t want anything in between” Stump bellows in ‘She’s My Winona’.
The problem is that Folie a Deux could do with a dose of subtlety. Listening to a handful of tracks, all featuring relentless power guitars, full throttle vocals, and super-charged tongue-in-cheek emo lyrics from Wentz, is an exhausting experience. There are no stripped down numbers to relieve the endless pounding assault that must challenge even the most high-octane of rock lovers.
Narcissistic Punk Pop, Shania Twain
The record kicks off with Stump’s solitary vocal, an endearingly simple intro that precedes the album’s punk pop fanfare and war cry that is ‘Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes’, an allusion to the same pseudo-Freemason society featured in cartoon favourite The Flintstones, the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes.
Lead single ‘I Don’t Care’ follows. It’s loud, pure punk pop and full of those loudly shouted statements about how Fall Out Boy “don’t care what you think, as long as it’s about me”. Crudely narcissistic and sounding disturbingly like Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I feel Like a Woman’, it’s not a huge surprise that this one got a lukewarm reception from critics.
Madness Shared By Two
The theme of Fall Out Boy’s conscious love affair with itself continues in other tracks. ‘America’s Suitehearts’ whilst catchy in the extreme, screams ‘Why won’t the world revolve around me?’ and ‘I must confess I’m in love with my own sins’. In fact, the album’s quirky French title, hints at the unhealthiness of the condition, the ‘madness shared by two’.
Folie a Deux Guest Appearances and Collaborators
The only notable change of pace comes on third single ‘What a Catch, Donnie’ which is a welcome slower track featuring numerous guest appearances singing similarly self-obsessed references to previous Fall Out Boy hits, among them Stump’s idol Elvis Costello, and Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes. However, the song is brimming with tired chord progressions and stale melodies and, though it aspires to lofty collaborative heights, fails to hit the mark.
The album is rife with more urban influences: the intro and opening verse of ‘Tiffany Blews’ in particular, along with Pharrell’s heavy blues styled appearance on the overtly sexual ‘w.a.m.s’ (though right at the end, even FOB couldn’t mesh that one into a coherent track).
Still, they seem disjointed, forced and a little bit cynical, when placed so starkly alongside Stump’s marshmallow vocals, thrashing guitars and Wentz’ teenage lyrics. Bizarrely, even the cringeworthy, ‘Throw your cameras in the air/ and wave them like you just don’t care’ doesn’t seem out of place.
Day & Age, Emo Favourites
By comparison, former Fall Out Boy rivals and fellow Island label artists, The Killers, have produced a far better and more music-focused record in their Day & Age album, which is topping the Best Albums of 2008 lists internationally.
And yet, there’s no doubt that FOB’s legions of emo fans are wetting their juvenile pants with joy (and queuing up for Fall Out Boy concert tickets) at the catchy and hook ridden collection that is Folie a Deux. Fall Out Boy have always had the knack for producing popular if ‘samey’ melodies that keep their young fans entranced in a kind of parent-approved way. But what’s new? That’s always been Fall Out Boy’s commercial strength, and it looks set to stay that way.
Fall Out Boy’s Folie a Deux is out now.
Related Reading
Readers may also be interested to read these reviews of The Killers: Day & Age and Kings of Leon: Only By The Night.
For new music to watch in 2009, check out Decemberists drummer John Moen's new indie outfit Perhapst.
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