#American Wasteland was the best one music wise.

[iero]

Does anyone else remember the Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland video game soundtrack with the emo band covers of classic punk rock songs or was that a fever dream?

[lunapaper]

Album Review: 'So Much (For) Stardust' - Fall Out Boy

No one liked M A N I A. Not even Joe Trohman, it turns out… 

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Fall Out Boy guitarist spoke about his frustrations with the band’s 2018 record, with a more rock-oriented album being scrapped early in the process. 

‘I’d say, ‘I’m gonna extricate myself from this. This is not what I want to do,'” he recalls. “‘When you have some stuff together, give it to me. If you want me to throw some ideas on there or whatever, I’ll do it in my recording studio.’ And I did that a little bit, but overall, I stayed pretty much out of it, more or less.  

‘Mania has some cool ideas and interesting stuff in there. But it didn’t work as well, and I can’t say I love it. That’s what leads me, hopefully, to go back to making a record… with guitars, bass, drums, vocal. I love synthesizers, synthesizers that we play. We can play music; let’s play the music. Let’s not go for samples. Let’s not try to reach for singles. At this point, we’ve had so many hit singles. Do we really even need to reach for singles anymore? I think we should just make a cool record.’ 

And he’s right: Fall Out Boy don’t need hit singles. As elder statesmen of the emo-rock scene, they’ve got nothing else left to prove. And were they ever a singles band? 

So, let’s cut to the chase: Fall Out Boy’s latest album, So Much (For) Stardust is nowhere near as bad as its predecessor. Probably because it’s super tame in comparison, mostly returning to the chart-friendly rock roots of Save Rock and Roll and 2015’s American Beauty/American Psycho.  

‘Hold Me Like a Grudge,’ easily the album’s best track, goes full ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ with its tense, bass-fuelled groove, along with some MJ-style vocal inflections from Patrick Stump. 

So Much (For) Stardust is at its best when it’s delivering straight-up rock bangers. ‘Love From The Other Side’ has a belter of a chorus, along with moody strings to help heighten the intensity, while ‘Heartbreak Feels So Good’ harks back to the urgent, pacey riffs of the past, proving why Trohman is such a key ingredient to the band’s sound. 

But then, after such a promising build-up, the record takes a sharp nosedive in quality. 

‘Fake Out’ is pure corn, sounding like a rejected JoBros cut from 2008. ‘Heaven, Iowa’ and ‘I Am My Own Muse’ embody the same blustery melodrama found on M A N I A. ‘What a Time to be Alive’ is the obligatory COVID track that already feels pretty dated (‘Sometimes, you wonder if we're ever lookin’ back/At a picture of 2019/And sayin', "That's the way, the world, it used to be/Before our dreams started burstin’ at the seams"/We're out here and we're ready, we're here and we're ready/To livestream the apocalypse’).  

‘So Good Right Now,’ meanwhile, veers dangerously close into Viva Las Vengeance territory with its brassy horns and chintzy strings, bursting with that insufferable theatre kid energy. ‘And all of our wildest dreams, they just end up with a-you and me,’ goes the track, ‘So, let's drive until thе engine just gives out.’ Lyrics-wise, it’s basically just ‘Don’t Let the Light Go Out,’ Part 2. 

I grow more and more weary of Pete’s lyrics with each album, at his pseudo-intellectual worst on the pointless interlude ‘Baby Annihilation,’ the bassist reciting teenage-level verse over spooky keys and gloomy synths (’The first time I took the mask off, just had another one on underneath/I'm just melted wax on a birthday cake, another year fades away/Charcoal crushed, pixie fever, angel dust/Stuck in a wasteland we covered in glitter and broadcast just for a little serotonin’). The album’s other interlude, ‘The Pink Seashell,’ takes a snippet from the 1995 Gen X classic, Reality Bites, starring Maya Hawke’s dad, yet adds no real value.  

I kinda struggle to grasp what the overall theme of So Much (For) Stardust is supposed to be. At the beginning of the album’s promo cycle, the band sent out postcards to a select group of fans, hinting at a beach resort-style dystopia – something that actually left me rather intrigued. But other than the ‘The Pink Seashell’ interlude, it’s never referenced again on the record.  

Look, I get you gotta get fans’ attention somehow. But why bother coming up with a gimmick if you’re not gonna expand on it? The beach resort-style dystopia doesn’t even appear on the album cover!  

Despite a promising start, So Much (For) Stardust musters a ‘meh’ at best. It’s pleasant enough, but not all that memorable an effort.  

It was probably for the best, though, that the Fall Out Boy went back to safe and familiar territory after the complete shitshow that was M A N I A. That they can deliver such a body of work this far into their career is an achievement, and admittedly does feature some decently tight drumwork, blistering riffs and some of Stump’s strongest vocals yet. 

I’m no doubt going to be dismissed by some as just longing for the past and gleefully told to ‘stay mad.’ But as a longtime FOB fan, I’m tired. I just want more reliable and straight-up rock bangers like ‘Hold Me Like a Grunge.’ For fuck’s sake, I’d do anything for more of that chaotic Pax-Am Days-style punk. No more goofy experiments, no more cynical shots at mainstream appeal. We don’t need another Panic! on our hands… 

It doesn’t quite sparkle as bright as I hoped, but So Much (For) Stardust could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.  

– Bianca B. 

[onlydylanobrien]

Coup De Main Magazine Interview: Dylan O'Brien on 'Love and Monsters'.

Dylan O'Brien really, really, really loves dogs. Fondly referring to his adorable co-star as "completely the star" of his new Oscar-nominated film, 'Love and Monsters, O'Brien's face lights up like a Christmas tree when reminiscing about the two Australian Kelpies, Hero and Dodge, who together portray his onscreen best friend, Boy (a.k.a. the best dog in the world).

At the heart of 'Love and Monsters' is this dynamic duo, with O'Brien as Joel Dawson, who in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by giant monsters decides to set off on a dangerous journey to reconnect with his high school sweetheart (played by Jessica Henwick), seven years after the Monsterpocalypse forced all of humanity into hiding underground.

An endearing tale of a wide-eyed boy and his loyal dog, we caught up with Dylan O'Brien to discuss 'Love and Monsters' which was filmed in Queensland, Australia...

COUP DE MAIN: Congrats on the Best Visual Effects Oscars nomination for 'Love and Monsters'! You're in the film, so for the purposes of this interview, I think you can own that.

DYLAN O'BRIEN: Thank you! Oh absolutely, I am nominated. I've been telling everybody: I'm an Oscar nominated actor now.

CDM: You did it!

DYLAN: Thanks! <laughs> It really is amazing.

CDM: It's funny that you filmed this movie back in March to May of 2019, but the whole situation of Joel finding himself separated from Aimee probably feels very familiar to anyone who started a relationship pre-pandemic that doesn't live with their partner.

DYLAN: Yeah, it's really weird. It's really weird how what we ended up going through when this movie was due to come out, how much it related to these themes that we're exploring in this movie. It's a very crazy coincidence.

CDM: Also, the sort of aversion to venturing out again into the outside world, that feels very relatable.

DYLAN: I know. Like when he first comes out of that hatch, he's breathing in the fresh air like it's strange. It's really strange.

CDM: I also thought of the current mask-wearing situation when Clyde says: "You can always tell in their eyes, just look at their eyes." People have had to do a lot of eye-reading this past year?

DYLAN: Right?! Oh, wow wow wow. I hadn't thought about that one.

CDM: One of my favourite things you've ever done is the 'Life Of A Hollywood Actor' video. What do you think the 2021 version of 'Life Of A Hollywood Actor' would look like?

DYLAN: <laughs> Thank you so much, first of all.

CDM: I rewatched it yesterday in preparation for this interview.

DYLAN: No way, thanks! That's really cool. Yeah, I love that character. I want to do something with him. What would the 2021 version be? I think he would definitely be taking the Oscar nom for himself, very seriously - like, the visual effects Oscar nom he would apply as being his, basically, and I think he'd try to bring that up and try to really ride that to get some work. He thinks this is gonna be a big career thing for him, and then he somehow fucks it up by being too overzealous.

CDM: Joel clings on to his memories of Aimee for seven years, replaying them in his mind so he can continue to relive them. Why is it that it's in human nature to mentally retreat into the past for comfort? And to look for a home in other people instead of building a solid home within ourselves?

DYLAN: That's really interesting... I feel like that's something instinctive, especially if you're going through a hard time or especially if something's shifted in your world negatively. I think there's uncertainty about the future and I always find in those situations a common link to wanting to find comfort in the past. I've gone through things, like times like that in my own life, and I've always found that when I've gone through a time like that, there's this level of uncertainty. I think it's human instinct and sort of this instinct to protect ourselves in a way. We're a wild species, aren't we? We're very emotional creatures. I think that's part of what makes humans so special. And instincts like that, to preserve and protect our heart and mind, and to hold on to things like that. And the way we're attached to memories like that and nostalgia. There's a reason these things are a part of our fabric. We're very emotional creatures.

CDM: Do you think that love or fear is a stronger emotion?

DYLAN: Whoah, that's pretty wild. I would say love - only because I feel like it has this sustainable power to endure over time. Whereas fears can be fleeting, and even if it comes quick, it's gone. But then also... yeah, I don't know. <laughs> We're getting deep. Real deep!

CDM: Is love an action or a feeling?

DYLAN: WHOAH. <cracks up>

CDM: I'm putting you on the spot, sorry.

DYLAN: No, no, I'm good! I love it! They're very interesting questions. I'm cracking up at you choosing me to answer these. Fuck. I mean, I think it's a feeling. I believe that, at least. I'm trying to think of ways it could be an action, obviously, but that's not love. I feel like if it's an action, it's something else. There are actions that come from love, but the love, it's a feeling. That's what I believe.

CDM: I always think about how in the TV show, 'Fleabag', The Priest says, "Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope," which I feel like Joel would also relate to.

DYLAN: Yeah! I love 'Fleabag'.

CDM: It's so good.

DYLAN: It's SO good.

CDM: Clyde says to Joel: "Good instincts are earned by making mistakes." Do you agree or disagree with Clyde's life lesson?

DYLAN: Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that, for sure. I think that mistakes absolutely help us grow, in many ways, in terms of instincts and stuff. Yeah, I think that's a wise and sensible perspective to have, especially in an apocalyptic wasteland.

CDM: Do you have any cooking specialities like Joel's talent for minestrone?

DYLAN: Yeah, I've got some go-to's. They're all my mom's, like the things that are nostalgic for me that I grew up with that my mom cooks, like her chicken soup. It's the first thing I do if I go on a job or somewhere where I'm going to be for a little while, just to feel like I'm at home, the first thing I'll do is I'll make a soup and then I'll have it in the fridge for the first week that I'm there. I'll make my mom's chicken soup and it's a really nice comforting sort of a feeling. And chicken cutlets. Two very chicken-y things!

CDM: There's a line I love from the TV show, 'The Good Place', in which one of the characters says: "Sometimes, when you're feeling helpless, the secret is to help someone else. Get out of your own head." I was reminded of it in the scene where Joel is forced to take action against a monster to help save not himself, but his dog. Excluding the life or death element, have you ever felt similarly that it's been easier to help someone else first in order to help yourself?

DYLAN: Yeah, sometimes to a fault. I think that that's something that's been a bit of a learning curve for me, interestingly enough, pretty recently as well in the last year or two, to sort of realise that I need to try to help myself sometimes a little more. I think I have an instinct to help the people that I love and want to be there for them, or even a stranger sometimes, over myself, which can definitely be an interesting quality, but yeah, I think that's helping yourself. Taking care of yourself is extremely important and I think that we all sort of go through our own path of learning the importance of that, and ultimately, too, if you want to be helping others and helping your loved ones, you actually need to be taking care of yourself, first and foremost. Everyone comes to their own kind of realisation over it. It takes time. It takes your 20s, sometimes more.

CDM: Do you miss your dog co-stars Hero and Dodge?

DYLAN: Yes! Yes!! I do. Yeah, I really, really do. And Zelie [Bullen] as well. Their mom and trainer.

CDM: Do you have a dog yourself?

DYLAN: I've got little dogs, yeah. I've got little babies. You?

CDM: I don't sadly, but it's my life goal to adopt a dog one day.

DYLAN: You should. Do you want one? You should get one!

CDM: I'm gonna just tell everyone: Dylan O'Brien told me to get a dog, so I'm getting a dog now.

DYLAN: <laughs> I'm just part of this major life decision for you, forever now.

CDM: Social media can be such a vanity project, but I love that you only have Twitter, and use it mostly just for helping give a platform to important human right issues and sharing your love for Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. What are your favourite Taylor Swift and Harry Styles songs?

DYLAN: Oh my goodness. Like ever? For Harry, from Harry's last album, 'Watermelon Sugar', obviously. I think my my favourite one of his though is... What's it called? I can hear it in my head. They sing it on 'American Idol' all the time.Falling'! That's a huge one for me. T Swift, I mean, it's amazing - give any of the rest of us like six months in quarantine and we look back on it and we're like, 'Shit, I should have done more,' but give Taylor six months in quarantine and she writes fifty hit songs. It's incredible. Off 'Folklore', I think 'Mirrorball' doesn't get enough credit. I'm a big 'Mirrorball' fan. I love 'My Tears Ricochet', and 'Mad Woman', 'Epiphany', 'The 1'.

CDM: Basically the whole album.

DYLAN: Yeah, I really liked that one. There's so many more, but those are my highlights.

CDM: You used to be in a band, Slow Kids At Play, right? Would you ever want to get back into music professionally again?

DYLAN: I still play all the time, and I still play with friends who play as well. Even those guys. They're all still my good friends. We actually had a reunion show in 2019 and it was really cool. We jammed in our friend's garage for our hometown friends. Music will always be a part of my life. I always try to not let it be one of those things that you lose in life. I think that's important to do. If it's not your primary thing, it's sometimes easy to. Often years pile up and then you're like, 'Oh, man, I haven't done this thing that I love in so long, like, I should build that into my routine.' So yeah, I'll always play drums and always jam with friends and play. And yeah, it'd be cool to be in a band again. Maybe someday. Or even just to play a show again, like even just to sit in for someone would be awesome.

CDM: Then maybe you can come to New Zealand on tour.

DYLAN: On tour?! I don't think I'd get to that level, but I like that you have aspirations for me.

CDM: Why is it important to you to use your platform for good?

DYLAN: I think that's influenced by the time that we're in. Also coinciding with a time that I went through in my life and just sort of getting older. And for me, it just feels right in terms of the things that I want to use it for, or try to support, or bring to life, or amplify, or bring a light to, and I guess it's influenced by my own learning and growing and trying to be more involved in this stuff and educate myself on it. It sort of just mirrors that a little bit, and I do think it's important.

CDM: Thank you for your time today. And thanks for telling me to get a dog.

DYLAN: Go do it! Send me a pic when you get them. It was such a pleasure talking to you, thanks so much.

[militant-holy-knight]

American Founder and second U.S. president John Adams once extolled his era. Some called it The Age of Reason. It was a time in which people were beginning to know more about their world than they ever had before. Knowledge was increasing at an exponential rate, and this filled the air with excitement. The Old World – Christendom, led by the Catholic Church – was on its way out. The Enlightenment was well underway to shape the West forever. Adams, a Unitarian, was greatly pleased that men would be able to lead their lives and their own society on the basis of their own conscience.

He then less than halfway joked that, just maybe, something bad might arise from the movement of his day:

“The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries have made mankind wiser. Titles and distinctions, ranks and orders, parade and ceremony, are all going out of fashion. This is roundly and frequently asserted in the streets, and sometimes on theatres of higher rank. Some truth there is in it; and if the opportunity were temperately improved, to the reformation of abuses, the rectification of errors, and the dissipation of pernicious prejudices, a great advantage it might be. But, on the other hand, false inferences may be drawn from it, which may make mankind wish for the age of dragons, giants, and fairies.”

Indeed, a great many false inferences were drawn from the Enlightenment. This period in history, which shaped America herself, started a downward spiral for the West that appears to have no end. Adams was right. In spite of himself and everything he achieved for the United States, times have definitely grown darker, and the cause for our empire’s downfall can be traced to its own blueprints.

As a result, the people in our day have a great need for escape. Over two centuries later, men find themselves at odds in a hateful world ruled by principalities and powers that are insurmountable. The people have been force-fed “the progress of civilization.” So now there are vast entertainment industries that produce escapist literature, film, music, and games to help people flee from the madness of their overlords. Over the centuries, they’ve carried the label of Romantics, Decadents, Symbolists, Counter-Culturists – they all run from the oppressive boot that shoves them onward to a destiny they didn’t ask for. They seek to escape from forced rationalism into something mystical.

Our Imaginations Must Be Free, Not Trapped

The mind can tolerate a wasteland for only so long. Men require a pilgrimage and retreat. Otherwise, one settles for vice and debasement. Experiencing wonder is necessary for a mature mind. It is not enough to be raised in a plain fashion, learning good moral habits to live by as if it’s all a simple matter of hygiene. Becoming a lawyer for “what’s good and what’s bad” does not securely instill the Faith in children, who, above all, are in the business of make-believe. No, we must leave the districts and subdivisions gerrymandered in our brains. We must fly above the rooftops from our suburban bobo communities. We’ve got to run for our lives into something fresh, new, and perhaps even dangerous:

“At first they had passed through hobbit-lands, a wide respectable country inhabited by decent folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business. Then they came to lands where people spoke strangely, and sang songs Bilbo had never heard before. Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse. Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees. On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people. Everything seemed gloomy, for the weather that day had taken a nasty turn. Mostly it had been as good as May can be, can be, even in merry tales, but now it was cold and wet. In the Lone-lands they had been obliged to camp when they could, but at least it had been dry.”

–From The Hobbit

Perhaps it is true that people are considered respectable when they “never have adventures or do anything unexpected.” Maybe it is true that the majority of people value someone who never breaks a taboo and can be counted on to be consistent and predictable. And, after all, even Puritan-loving John Adams will tell you that obscure men are hardly ever honored. Conformity and monotony are what the world tells you it wants. But this mode of dry, uninspiring, Dudley-Do-Right, unimaginative thinking is like planting seeds in depleted soil:

“[T]he seminal ideas of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, only properly grow in an imaginative ground saturated with fables, fairy tales, stories, rhymes, romances, adventures–the thousand good books of Grimm, Andersen, Stevenson, Dickens, Scott, Dumas and the rest. Western tradition, taking all that was the best of the Greco-Roman world into itself, has given us a culture in which the Faith properly grows; and since the conversion of Constantine that culture has become Christian. It is the seedbed of intelligence and will, the ground for all studies in the arts and sciences, including theology, without which they are inhumane and destructive. The brutal athlete and the aesthetic fop suffer vices opposed to the virtues of what Newman called the “gentleman.” Anyone working in any art or science, whether “pure” or “practical,” will discover he has made a quantum leap when he gets even a small amount of cultural ground under him; he will grow like an undernourished plant suddenly fertilized and watered.”

–Ryan Topping, Renewing the Mind

There has been a war against fantasy, a war against wonder. And yet, those who wonder and philosophize are superior to those who despair cluelessly. And only someone who does not know everything has the capability to wonder. Therefore, what better place is there to explore than fantasy? The realm of fantasy is a place accessible to all, and as it is ever changing, we can never hope to know everything about it. The Land of Faerie, as Tolkien called it, transports and uplifts us. It renews us. It waters the soil of our minds, and it serves as a much needed respite from the godless demands of the world.

Fantasy’s Ultimate Effect

John Adams ridiculed imagination. He joked that Shakespeare could have been an electioneering agent. In his view, “superstition, prejudices, passions, fancies, and senses” were weaknesses to be manipulated, preventing you from ever having what he considered liberty. Adams believed that fantastical thinking was forced upon the West in order to control the people. This is all a grievous error. “For God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

It is the imagination that enables us to survive in today’s wicked world. We have a sense of wonder that rationalists like Adams cannot understand. This sense of wonder is what prepares us for understanding the wider world and what it means. The vast majority of people who fall away from the Faith or refuse to consider it lack wonder. As a result, you have a large portion of people in the West who fall into hedonism. They try to numb their own senses as they struggle to follow the crowd – as though they were swimming among a school of fish.

“Fantasy, horror, and science fiction, apart from allowing an author to comment on things in a way he normally could not in mainstream writing (so much of which is garbage anyway) – it breeds a sense of wonder. And ladies and gentlemen, if you do not have a sense of wonder, you cannot really understand the Catholic faith. You’ll just be ‘Oh well, the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ.’ You may actually believe that, but if you don’t have a sense of wonder?

“Listen, ladies and gentlemen, what is more amazing? The idea that with a wand I could wave, everything would start dancing around the room? Or that Christ Himself comes down onto the altar and becomes bread and wine that we are able to receive into ourselves? Which is more wondrous?

“If I already have a sense of wonder, then I can look at this incredible gift that God has given us. And the fact [is] that every single Mass that has ever been, or ever will be, or is being said at this moment across the globe is one with every other – and with the Crucifixion, and with the Last Supper. That’s astonishing. That’s absolutely amazing. And I have a sense of wonder that prepared me for that – to make it go from a mere set of things I learned in school and home to being a living reality that dominates my life. …

“[U]nless we approach our faith with that wondrous quality, it will grow old and tired. That is not a fault of the Faith. That’s our fault.”

–Charles Coulombe, “Off the Menu,” July 16, 2018

Being good “to be good” is not enough. John Adams thought so, but his Puritanical sensibility was mistaken. Man lives his life on a quest. He is not meant to run from his imagination and all that is mystical. He is meant to explore with awe and curiosity. His heart is meant to be lifted, not shackled.

A strange and exciting land lies before man when it comes to fantasy. We go to that place because it presages the Land Beyond we all hope to emigrate to, Heaven itself. “And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them, and said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:2-3).