Fall Out Boy: Save Rock And Roll

Seeking Susan Boyle has been a one man band since its inception, but no longer...

introducing herself with a review of Fall Out Boy's comeback album is Nelly da Conceição Estrela, who caught my eye with her work over at her own blog, student-journalist and who i'm proud to welcome to the fold.



This may be a little biased seeing as I am the biggest Fall Out Boy fangirl ever since my best friend made me listen to ‘Dance, Dance’ off their 2005 album ‘From Under The Cork Tree’.

I saw Fall Out Boy perform for the first time at the O2 Arena in March of 2009 and it was magic for my little teenage heart. It was a wonderful night and I’ll never forget how I felt like I was part of one big family as we all sung the lyrics to ‘Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner’ in complete unison.

The 4-piece band from Illinois, Chicago went on to have an impromptu hiatus from 2010 until early February this year. To the delight of many die-hard fans (myself included), they had secretly recorded a whole album (insert squeals here), titled an ambitious ‘Save Rock And Roll’. Although, I feel that it’s a satirical device, the album title is fitting.

A music video was released four days after their comeback was announced, starring 2 Chainz, a popular hip-hop artist. Hardly rock and roll, but I applaud the boys for putting out creative feelers and trying to do something different.

The polar worlds of hip-hop/rap and rock have collided before; does anybody remember the music video of Korn’s ‘Twisted Transistor’ featuring rappers Lil jon, Xzibit, Snoop Dogg and David Banner? To my disgust, a small group of so-called ‘fans’ were exercising their right to free speech and making albeit racist remarks at the collaboration on the YouTube comments for the single ‘My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up)’.

 

There were some people who made genuine comments on the album, referring to the repeated usage of technology instead of what they call ‘real instruments’. To some degree, I’ll recognise that some of the songs are severely lacking in the raw essence we saw in ‘Infinity on High’ (2007) and ‘Take This To Your Grave’ (2003).

As a drummer, I found myself to be disappointed in the beats and found them to be a little too edited and saturated to connect with. Having said that, I do really like the clap sample intro from ‘My Songs’ (which went platinum in the U.S.) and the intro to ‘Rat a Tat’, which features Courtney Love. The star-studded album also features the likes of Elton John, Big Sean and Foxes, an up-and-coming British singer and songwriter.

As a fangirl, I was psyched for this album and I still find myself grooving to it. I have to respect that this album was produced with 100% heart and that Fall Out Boy are trying to shed their negative sell-out ‘emo’ phase and trying to please no one but themselves with their music.

And that takes a lot of cojones, especially in this wonderful, weird digital age.

words by Nelly da Conceição Estrela