Emo Lovin’ Time!

March 9th, 2007 by lynn under Leisure

I just ran my Fall Out Boy CD, Infinity On High, a couple of times. It’s not mind-blowingly awesome, but I’m new to the punk scene so perhaps I’m not quite used to their type of all-over-the-place mentality yet. I like my song choruses to actually have the title of the song in there, but Fall Out Boy apparently don’t subscribe to that ethos. Tracks 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 don’t have titles in the choruses. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Of course it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the music, but it would help if I knew which parts were which, because when I want to play along to the song, I need to keep track of where I am on the page. It all gets a bit overwhelming sometimes.

Andy Hurley’s drumming is solid, as usual. He’s probably the most consistent member of the band. I have no opinions of Joe Trohman’s guitar playing, since I don’t play guitar and punk is supposed to be a bit messy, so what I take to be sloppy playing might just be his own style. Some online reviews have mentioned that Patrick Stump’s singing has slacked off a bit. I’m not really sure how to interpret his singing. I mean, I’m not blown away by it, but it works with the sound as a whole, even when they’re throwing in gospel and hip-hop influences. I just wish I could differentiate when Pete Wentz is singing harmony. His basslines are phat, although nothing spectacular - punk isn’t renowned for artistry in that department.

As usual, the lyrics are divisive. Some love the emo honesty of Pete’s words, some hate them for precisely that reason. Well, not being a fan of emo poetry, I find the references to morbidity a bit loser-ish sometimes. Like in “Sugar, We’re Going Down”, a line goes “Lie in the grass, next to the mausoleum”. What relevance does a mausoleum have to anything? Nothing, it’s just there as a romantic memento mori. There’s less navel-gazing in this album, or at least it’s not too whiny about it. There is a reference to keeping your “hearts and wrists intact”, which is such a cliche, really.

I wonder if I could ever date an emo boy. Probably not, since they’re kinda rare in my age range. Like I said, after 18 (or was it 21?), being emo is just immature. And by emo, I mean scene-emo, with the hair and the eyeliner. Being depressed is not the same as being emo. I have no problems with people expressing their pain and sorrow, I just don’t see why it has to come along with an entire subculture. And if you’re going to throw my Pete Wentz obsession in my face, I will just say that he’s the bassist, and I have a thing for bassists. My acquaintance pool has a funny knack of throwing them up every so often, and it’s not because I only befriend bassists. Probability and availability heuristics, coupled with saliency effects, are funny things.

So I lied. I don’t love emo people, quite the contrary, in fact. But I will concede, their preferred brand of music isn’t half bad.