Let me start this by saying that I love music, and lots of different varieties of music. Now, with that said, I have not really been one to public endorses or denounce music, and I don’t plan on starting that now. However, I do plan on sharing my opinions on certain albums, etc. (I mean, it’s really easy to be a critic because you can hate everything and people think you’re doing your job!)
I’m about eight or nine months late on a review of this, but I just picked up Fall Out Boys most recent album Folie à Deux. For my self-disclosure, I am a Fall Out Boy fan. I don’t own t-shirts or anything, but I do like their music. I’ve been listen to the albums now for a while, and I have to say, that the band has made a major leap into adulthood in this album.
Up until this point, they have had the typical emo song themes: I love you, I miss you, you did me wrong, I won’t tell people you’re cheating with me. In this album, you run across songs with much more substance. Take She’s My Winonaas an example. This is a great example of how having children impacts your life and your music. It’s a definite change in Pete Wentz’s lyrics, and the change doesn’t stop there.
The song 20 Dollar Nose Bleedincludes references to the war in Iraq and the Bush administrations declaration of winning the war. (Again, for the record, I’m not a political blog.) Or that the song Head First into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet makes reference to woman cheating on both her husband and a new lover. So, listeners are exposed to a more grown up Fall Out Boy, that’s willing to tackle different topics. Oh, and did I mention that Elvis Costello shows up on the album?
As you can tell from the song titles, that some things don’t change. They still continue to have “clever” (and I do use that loosely) song titles, but I don’t begrudge them for that. The reality is that Pete Wentz, bassist, frontman, and lyricist for the group, has lyrics that I would imagine he thinks is much more clever than they really are. But, hey, don’t we all know someone like that. (In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m like that on this blog.)
The bottom line of the album is that it hooks you in from start to finish with solid rock songs that give enough depth and substance to have some kind of meaning. If you’re a current FoB fan, you’ll have no problem listening to this album. If you’re not currently a fan, I would recommend picking it up. It’s probably their most complete album to date.
On a five star scale: 4 out of 5.
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