Albums : Fall Out Boy: Save Rock And Roll

Albums : Fall Out Boy: Save Rock And Roll

Listen To Fall Out Boy: Save Rock And Roll

Who Is Fall Out Boy?
Fall Out Boy rose to the forefront of emo pop in the mid-2000s, selling more than four million albums thanks to the band's tabloid-grabbing bassist, able-voiced frontman, and handful of Top 40 hits. The group's four members first came together in suburban Wilmette, a bedroom community just 14 miles north of Chicago, around 2001. Vocalist/guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz, drummer Andrew Hurley, and guitarist Joe Trohman had all taken part in various bands connected to Chicago's underground hardcore scene. Most notably, Hurley drummed for Racetraitor, the furiously political metalcore outfit whose brief output was both a rallying point and sticking point within the hardcore community. As Fall Out Boy, the quartet used the unbridled intensity of hardcore as a foundation for melody-drenched pop-punk, with a heavy debt to the emo scene. They debuted with a self-released demo in 2001, following it up in May 2002 with a split LP (issued on the Uprising label) that also featured Project Rocket, for which Hurley also drummed. The band remained with the label for the release of a mini-LP, Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girl, but a bidding war of sorts was already in full swing.

Fall Out Boy eventually signed a deal with Fueled by Ramen, the Florida-based label co-owned by Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello, but also received an advance from Island Records to record a proper debut album. The advance came with a right of first refusal for Island on Fall Out Boy's next album, but it also financed the recording of Take This to Your Grave, which occurred at Butch Vig's Smart Studios compound in Madison, Wisconsin, with producer Sean O'Keefe (Lucky Boys Confusion, Motion City Soundtrack) at the helm. Take This to Your Grave appeared in May 2003, and Fall Out Boy earned positive reviews for subsequent gigs at South by Southwest and various tour appearances. Their break-out album, the ambitious From Under the Cork Tree, followed in spring 2005, quickly reaching the Top Ten of Billboard's album chart and spawning two Top Ten hits with "Sugar We're Going Down" and the furiously upbeat "Dance, Dance." The album went double platinum and earned the musicians a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.

Fall Out Boy's underground star status — driven by the especially extroverted Wentz, who also gained exposure with his clothing line, his Decaydance record label (an imprint of Fueled by Ramen), and eventually a celebrity relationship with Ashlee Simpson — had boiled over into the mainstream. They toured extensively, supporting the album with international tours, arena shows, TRL visits, late-night television gigs, and music award shows. Without taking a break, the guys then hunkered down to work on their follow-up record with From Under the Cork Tree producer Neil Avron (and, somewhat surprisingly, Babyface). Infinity on High, whose title was taken from a line in one of Van Gogh's personal letters, appeared in early February 2007, spearheaded by the hit single "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race." The album continued Fall Out Boy's streak, debuting at number one on the Billboard charts and going platinum one month later. Released in early 2008, the CD/DVD package Live in Phoenix documented the band's strength as a flashy live act, while the full-length studio effort Folie à Deux followed later that year.

Recording sessions for Folie à Deux were tough, prompting the band to take an open-ended hiatus soon after the album's release. Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley joined a new band, Damned Things, during the interim, while Wentz teamed up with a new vocalist, Bebe Rexha, to form Black Cards. Stump took the opportunity to launch a solo career, ditching his band's emo pop music in favor of a more electronic, R&B-influenced sound.

Stump released his debut solo album Soul Punk in 2011 and despite some positive reviews, the album didn't catch fire. Pete Wentz spent time with a new band called Black Cards, but that also didn't really go anywhere, and it wasn't long before rumors of a Fall Out Boy reunion began to swirl. In February 2013 the band confirmed that the rumors were true: they had reunited for a new album called Save Rock & Roll and an accompanying tour. Save Rock & Roll was released in April of 2013, preceded by the single "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)." ~ Johnny Loftus & Corey Apar, Rovi

Save Rock And Roll Review
It’s important not to take the title too seriously. Fall Out Boy know as well as anyone that rock’n’roll is an amorphous and constantly evolving definition just like “pop music”. In fact they parody this apparent self-importance in the closing track, with Patrick Stump singing, “I’ve only plugged in to save rock and roll”, like one might pop in to bring you soup on an off day. But every self-effacing joke bears a germ of truth as Pete Wentz lays out in a recent interview with TIME: “If I hadn’t ever had a chance to hear an album like Dookie, I don’t know where I would have ended up. If anything, we want to be a band like that.” It might be a joke but it’s also a call to arms. Put on your warpaint.

Save Rock And Roll is Fall Out Boy’s biggest-sounding album to date. It’s a full 13 minutes shorter than Folie A Deux (2008) but it counters the previous album’s sombre finality and orchestral ups and downs by being constantly, unrelentingly explosive. Even the relatively melancholic tracks like ‘Alone Together’ champion adversity as a force for building heroes. Thunderous drums ignite the aggression in Patrick Stump’s voice, daring the world to fuck with him and, by virtue of his inclusivity, us. This has always been Fall Out Boy’s strength and it’s grown over the albums from an empathetic shoulder to cry on into a bulwark against life’s bullshit. It’d be paternal if your dad could still party.

In their effort to lionise youth, some of the songs suffer from unspectacular choruses. ‘Young Volcanoes’ is packed with the kind of Glee-ready forever-young nonsense fun. got so much shit for last year and “We are wild/We are like young volcanoes” might be the worst lyric Wentz has ever put out into the world. Fortunately, Stump is such an energising vocalist he could deliver a Target catalogue like it was a triumph of the human spirit. That means cringe-worthy lines like, “I’m gonna change you/Like a remix/Then I’ll raise you/Like a phoenix”, get a pass on his conviction alone.

If it’s not paternal then maybe it’s avuncular. Lines like “I’m here to collect your hearts/It’s the only reason that I sing” and “We will teach you how to make boys next door/Out of assholes” have a precedent in the band’s earlier work, portraying Fall Out Boy as a Puck-ish influence on the hearts of the youth, and it’s nice to know they haven’t lost that sense of mischief despite being old enough to have kids of their own. Only now there’s a sense of protectiveness, which might explain why ‘Young Volcanoes’’ chorus sounds so hollow. This doesn’t feel like a record made by similarly confused kids, but one made by adults; not old enough to have forgotten what it’s like, but old enough to reflect and maybe in the course of doing so, impart some wisdom. That maturity fully comes out on ‘Rat A Tat’ where, between Courtney Love’s squawked punk poetry, Stump sings “We’re all fighting growing old/In the hopes of a few minutes more/So get on St Peter’s list/But you need to lower your standards/’cos it’s never gettin’ any better than this.”

Fall Out Boy have always had a solid if eclectic roster of guests and Save Rock And Roll is no exception. Big Sean turns in a surprisingly adequate verse on ‘The Mighty Fall’. Courtney Love’s presence seems to be polarising but once you get past that, ‘Rat A Tat’ is the most immediately likeable song on the record for anyone missing the mid-aughts version of the band. They save the biggest guest for last, on the album’s titular closer. Pianos give way to a stomp-stomp-clap as Elton John creeps in behind Patrick Stump’s vocals before taking it all for himself, singing, “You are what you love/Not who loves you.” He clearly sounds his age but the lower octaves perform much the same function as Elvis Costello’s on the last album, counterbalancing Stump’s higher range.

As with the last two albums, Save Rock And Roll might take a period of adjustment depending on your listening habits, but fans of huge pop records have a lot to love here. Instead of going through the laundry list of synonyms for “huge”, all you need to know is that every single one of these songs is incredibly satisfying to sing along to, and as far as pop and rock’n’roll are concerned, the karaoke test is infallible. Although it doesn’t quite reach the emotional scope of Folie A Deux, this is no regression. Ten years, almost to the day, since the release of their first full-length album, and Fall Out Boy are going stronger than ever.


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