Island
2008
Folie A Deux
About This Album
Who knew that Sgt. Pepper's was once again the in record for now hipsters? First, Panic at the Disco dropped the exclamation mark and donned trippy marching uniforms for the psychedelic pastiche Pretty, Odd, now Fall Out Boy follow with Folie à Deux, a record that doesn't attempt to re-create the sound but the spirit of 1967, when rock bands would try anything on their LPs, especially if it included lots of orchestration. Strings are only one of the accoutrements on Folie à Deux. Fall Out Boy pile everything onto their fifth album: cameos from superstars and running mates, so many that Lil Wayne and Debbie Harry are barely heard; thundering arena rock rhythms and ultra-slick hair metal riffs; hints of soul and R&B; synths lifted from new wave singles and retro hits alike. If only it were done with a modicum of care, it might seem like a crazy postmodern hall of mirrors, but Fall Out Boy are too artless to be postmodern. They're hyper modern, flitting through the past and present, taking nothing seriously and taking everything they can, cramming so many allusions into their overstuffed songs it's impossible to tell what is intentional and what is accidental. (Are those crashing chords on "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes" really taken from "Baba O'Reilly"? Do they realize "I don't care what you think/Just as long as it's about me" is from Nirvana's "Drain You"? Does it matter?)

Uncertainty about FOB's intentions is a problem intensified by how lyricist and de facto leader Pete Wentz writes every line with a smirk (it's a wonder he's yet to title a song with an emoticon) and how singer Patrick Stump treats every lyric as if it's sacrosanct, never acknowledging that there just might be a pun there.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,5,6,7,9,10,11 and 12)

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