f0lie4vr - Tumblr blog

[f0lie4vr]

oh! my friends all lie and say they only want the best wishes for me.

[f0lie4vr]

"detox just to retox"

AFFECTIVE BLOOM-SPACE

This record is a prime example of an affective bloom-space — a place where, as Seigworth and Gregg define it, a place where affect is in the “interval... stretching” stage, and manifests as an “unfolding of patho-logy (of ‘not yets.’)”

Their understanding pits promise and threat against each other and affect then thrives in the tension — the potential for concession or fruition drives the capacity for affect. As described previously, these emotions cover a breadth of being, and cover so many in-between spaces. Because this record oscillates between introspective to self-deprecating to bitter to self-assured to hopeful to resolute to self-destructive to filled with love from song to song, from verse to verse, even, it allows affect to pump through it like blood, making the heartbeat motif throughout the record even more apt.

FAN RECEPTION

And that’s why I, personally, think Folie was so poorly received. Fall Out Boy, at this point in their career, was known for angst, for anger, for bitterness, for the expectation that they were mad and sad and had something to say about it. They were known for being cheesy at the worst, and poignantly profound at their very best. These blurry, messy, roller-coaster, all-encompassing, real emotions were new for them, especially some of them slanted at an angle more conducive to moving forward and finding fulfillment in living, and the fans and haters alike who had specific expectations for Fall Out Boy didn’t know how to compute that these four guys from Chicago were changing into people that had been impacted by their career and by life. In creating these expectations for the band, both the haters that Fall Out Boy teased in their music and the fans they lived to make music for restricted what the band was allowed to feel and how they were allowed to express those feelings. Fall Out Boy, as these people who booed them off stage for playing songs from Folie only understood Fall Out Boy as capable of one trick, and weren’t open to delving into the wealth of affect that vagueness had to offer. Luckily, now — years later — the band and fans alike have recognized Folie’s value — and she gets the complicated, intense love she deserves.

[f0lie4vr]

so boycott love prints

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“i’ve got troubled thoughts and the self esteem to match”

The album’s crowning jewel, the rock ballad “What A Catch, Donnie,” which features lyrics written by Wentz that are instead written from Stump’s perspective rather than his own, does this to the nth degree. The title is a reference to Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack’s musical partner who unfortunately killed himself in 1979 while they were working on an album together. This partnership is being compared to Stump and Wentz’s close creative relationship, in which they are each a half of the creative process to songwrite. Wentz writing this song from Stump’s perspective identifies Wentz himself as Hathaway in this comparison, evident by this lyric:

All I can think of is the way I’m the one who charmed the one Who gave up on you Who gave up on you

… showing that the speaker is the only one that has a shot at making the other person happy, because the other person has given up on themselves.

There’s other references to being on the verge of suicide:

Miss Flack said “I still want you back”

And:

They say the captain Goes down with the ship But when the world ends Will God go down with it?

And the chorus of all their hit songs up to this point being sung by their music industry friends like it's a eulogy of Wentz’s crowning achievements at his funeral.

But then, amid all those motifs, comes the reprise. Elivs Costello, one of Stump’s biggest musical influences, sings it, and it’s the same words as the bridge in “Headfirst Slide,” but it takes on new meaning in this context. Costello sings:

I will never end up like him Behind my back, I already am Keep a calendar, this way you will Always know

This moment is it — this moment is the encapsulation of what we saw inklings of in “She’s My Winona.” Many fans see this song as sad and heart wrenching, and a smarter few see it as the first sign of positivity in Fall Out Boy’s discography.

But I see something different here — “Winona” featured softer acknowledgements of the worth of living, but this is an outright, solidified commitment to himself, to Stump, and to the fans that Wentz will never end up like him, like Hathaway, who he has spent the whole ballad comparing himself to. He’s never going to go back to the dark place he was in when he overdosed in 2005, or the dark place he was at in 2003 when he laid under a blanket and thought about dying in the band’s shared apartment.

The range and depth of emotion required to gracefully wrestle with these feelings, acknowledge them, then acknowledge your own worth and desire to live and move forward cannot be understated.

[f0lie4vr]

"i love the mayhem more than the love"

“(Coffee’s For Closers)” bemoans the state of media, and is specifically about the frustration that media in the US in the late 2000s was so focused on reporting the ins and outs of celebrities’ lives and not on real news, like tragedies in third world countries.

The refrain...

I will never believe in anything again

Has a responding call:

Change will come

...Which has more emphasis sonically, and it creates this overwhelming sense of optimism and hope for change despite frustration.

[f0lie4vr]

"sometimes i wanna quit this all and become an accountant"

The same is true for so many other songs on this record. “The (Shipped) Gold Standard” addresses imposter syndrome, disillusionment, the struggles of being a musician among those things, and an ultimate desire to kick tendencies to victimize oneself and take accountability for your struggles and what you can do to solve them even when you’re hurting.

It’s mired in negative feelings, but the chorus chant...

You can only blame your problems On the world for so long Before it all becomes the same old song Soon as we hit the hospital I know we’re gonna leave this town Get new passports and get, get, get Get out now

...drives home a sense of realizing a sobering reality and resolving to change and move on to new places and new attitudes.

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"hell or glory (i don’t want anything in between)"

It’s most apparent on “She’s My Winona.” Folie came out around the time Wentz’s first son, Bronx, was born, and references to his step into fatherhood are apparent throughout this song and the chorus that proclaims there was “a baby boy with long eyelashes.” This change in Wentz’s life seems to have ushered in some shift in perspective, because for the first time in Fall Out Boy’s discography, Wentz is introspective about life, but not in the doom-and-gloom way. Stump croons out Wentz’s words:

Life’s just a pace car on death Only less diligent And when the two collide, it’s no coincidence The lights are on and everybody’s home The only thing suicidal here is the door We had a good run, and even I had to admit Life’s just a pace car on death Only less diligent

The metaphor is a bit complicated, and I only really recently took the time to truly understand it. A pace car, in professional car racing, sets the pace for the other cars — as the name suggests — in the caution period, i.e., when there’s a hazard on the track. No cars are allowed to pass the pace car, and the pace car slows everyone down during a situation that could be dangerous. The race is a race to die, and life seeks to slow down the racers in this view. In Wentz’s own words, “death is the thing that’s imminent, life is what is happening.” But, if life is less diligent than a pace car, that means that maybe life doesn’t slow every racer down, and some cross the finish line — die — early. Life is messy, and life is fragile — like the fate of a race car that doesn’t heed the warning of the pace car’s speed.

This view of death being a race — and all mortal beings are racers going at life’s pace — sounds morbid, but look how different this view is to Wentz’s previous ones expressed in earlier records.

In XO, the closer of From Under The Cork Tree, Wentz views love and life as things that don’t want him and screw him over, respectively:

It never calls me when I’m down Love never wanted me But I took it anyway Put your ear to the speaker And choose love or sympathy But never both Love never wanted me

In “Golden,” Wentz outright says that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and we’re all being cheated. Stump sings:

How cruel Is the golden rule? When the lives we live are only golden plated?

In “Saturday,” the most quintessential Fall Out Boy song in existence (it closes out every single show and has since the band’s start), the downright cynical take on life is apparent:

I read about the afterlife But I never really lived

“She’s My Winona” marks the start of a departure from a strict encampment in disillusionment, in bitterness, in cynicism. In “She’s My Winona,” Wentz starts to romanticize his own life a little. The title almost certainly is a reference to Winona Ryder, which makes sense, as half of Fall Out Boy’s work is built on getting pop culture references to media produced between the 70s and 90s.

Wentz has said, quite vaguely, in an interview with New Musical Express that as far as this song goes,

“people can read what they like into certain things, so I guess Winona could be anyone for you, Winona for me is reality, but I’m my own Winona.”

Like media consumers romanticized Winona Ryder in her early career, Wentz is seeing his own life and idealizing and becoming attached to the features that are beautiful, alluring, and exciting. Of course, romanticization in excess is not good for anyone — but this acknowledgement that parts of your life are worth romanticizing, after viewing life as something that only serves to cheat you and make you suffer is a huge step in a more hopeful direction.

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Folie a Deux - December 10th, 2008 X

[f0lie4vr]

"i'd promise you anything for another shot at life"

FOLIE À DUEX (2008)

All of these details are to give you a feel for Fall Out Boy’s work up to the point of Folie à Deux. With each album, they were innovating, they were building off of the music titans they looked up to, but, most importantly, their fame was multiplying exponentially. The singles on Infinity on High were immensely popular — “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs” charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 11, and “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” peaked at number 2.

With their fame skyrocketing, the fan base and the musical communities who didn’t like Fall Out Boy (read: the pop charts that thought they were too hard for having guitars and basslines, and the metal communities who thought they were too soft for writing about emotions) had expectations, and Folie a Deux did not meet them — at the time, it flopped, because it was so different than anything Fall Out Boy had done previously, but now, many of the songs are setlist staples, because the band and the fans have recognized the beauty of its affect.

What solidifies this record as different is the depth and range of emotion in both the lyricism and the sonic structure. Many critiques of this album call Wentz’s lyricism on this record “a stream-of-consciousness quality that sacrifices his heart-on-sleeve theatrics for an insular solipsism” and Stump’s musical constructions as over-the-top, but even detractors that don’t like this record say that the “exhilarating moments make all the bullshit worth it.”

The record drips with life sonically — it kicks off with intense, thumping snare drums, mimicking a heartbeat in the opening track, “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes.”

The drums and the bass reinvoke this motif of a beating heart throughout the record. The intro of “(Coffee’s For Closers),”

The droning bass of “w.a.m.s.,”

The more intense thump of the bass in “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet,”

The lulling rhythm guitar of “America’s Suitehearts,”

And the climbing riff of “I Don’t Care.”

The record has an increased amount of theatrical flare, paralleling the way emotions inexplicably fluctuate and consume, from Stumps soaring backing vocals in “She’s My Winona” and the stunning range in “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet.”

Like the records before it, it shifts from introspective to angry to bitter to wistful... but there’s something new that hadn’t reared its head before now: hope.

[f0lie4vr]

nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy.

[f0lie4vr]

"We only want to sing you to sleep

In your bedroom speakers, whoa"

I came up with the idea for this drawing a while back and finally felt like I could draw it exactly like I saw it in my head 😌

[f0lie4vr]

“long live the car crash hearts”

INFINITY ON HIGH (2007)

The following album in 2007, Infinity on High, was the same sort of deal — it’s like Cork Tree’s more mature older sister.

The influence game is more than apparent in Infinity. As early as 2005, Wentz, in interviews, was talking about the band looking to get Babyface — renowned R&B artist and producer who is responsible for Grammy-winning hits from artists like Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Beyonce, and many others — to produce their next album.

They didn’t have the money for him to produce the entire album, so they settled for having him produce two songs:

“Thnks Fr Th Mmrs” …

…and “I’m Like A Lawyer With The Way I’m Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You).”

These songs, along with songs like “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” …

and “I’ve Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers” …

are heavily influenced by the R&B world.

The album has more introspective moments than the last. The swelling piano ballad “Golden” …

…and the cacophonic “The (After) Life Of The Party” …

…sprinkled in-between classic FOB hard-hitters like “Hum Hallelujah,”

“The Carpal Tunnel Of Love,”

and “Fame < Infamy.”

[f0lie4vr]

the (after) life of the party

[f0lie4vr]

16, clumsy + shy <3

i luv little bitty patrick!! plus pete, joe and andy. was feeling nostalgic for early fob

[f0lie4vr]

"i slept with someone in fall out boy and all i got was this stupid song written about me"

FROM UNDER THE CORK TREE (2005)

This quintessential angst continued into their sophomore album From Under the Cork Tree.

From the high BPM of “XO” ...

... and the harder riffs and screamed lyrics of “Snitches and Talkers Get Stitches and Walkers” ...

and the multiple intensities of “I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me" and a few others all kept the aesthetic of what would become known as classic Fall Out Boy.

But this time, it was different. Aside from those songs and the few other similar ones, it was largely an innovation of sound and lyricism.

“I’ve Got A Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)” features an acoustic lament on the speaker’s sense of self. With heart-wrenching lines like this:

I want to be known for my hits Not just my misses I took a shot And didn’t even come close With trust, and love, and hope And the poets are just kids who didn't make it And never had it, at all

And this gut-punch of a chorus:

And the record won't stop skipping And the lies just won't stop slipping And besides, my reputation's on the line We can fake it for the airwaves Force our smiles, baby, half-dead From comparing myself to everyone else around me

Pop punk anthems that went down in history like “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down" ...

... and “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me” ...

(and deep cuts like “Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner” ...

...and “Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends”)

were more upbeat and accessible for a wider audience taste pallet who wasn’t into punk, and managed to toe the lines between self-deprecating, distinctly bitter, and goofy cheesiness all at once. “Dance, Dance,” one of the band’s most popular singles...

...was crafted with David Bowie’s “Modern Love” in mind as inspiration, which itself draws on the music of Little Richard.

Similarly, “7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen)”...

draws heavily on the style of American rock band Van Halen...

(as the parenthetical in the title [which is a portmanteau of the name “Van Halen” and a misspelling of “Ativan,” the anxiety medication Wentz was on at the time and attempted to overdose on later that year in a Best Buy parking lot] as well as the punchy riffs in the song suggest).

What was before a rock band born of the punk scene in Chicago was now a band that was evolving, learning to stand on the shoulders of the giants before them and starting a conversation with their fanbase about feelings through their honest (and, at times, cheesy) lyricism.

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“Why don’t you just drop dead?”

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