so, i’ve never really given Fall Out Boy a close listen to as a group. these days i’m ready to give anybody a fair shake and so i thought i’d queue up fob’s latest release “Folie A Deux” and give it a spin. i remember listening to last.fm one day when a song came on that made me look up and wonder: “who is that?” within the first eight measures. turns out it was the second track off this album–”I Don’t Care”.
there’s no doubt these guys have their act together and they know what they’re going for. the production is slick and pro, the melodies are super sugary and catchy, and their hooks will linger in your mind long after hearing the song. in this way however, they don’t differ too much from our pal Britney Spears. wait, maybe that’s too cruel a comparison.
i think i can understand the genre roughly speaking: sort of a post-emo/pop-rock/punk/social commentary thing. the problem is is when i take a look at the lyrics i’m a little confused. gems like “i don’t care what you think as long as it’s about me” and “i’m in love with my own sins” abound here. there are some good moments: “i wanna scream ‘i love you’ from the top of my lungs/but i’m afraid that someone else will hear me”–works for me. what i can’t get is whether or not this is total sarcasm or if there’s a painful layer of honest truth that lies underneath. who knows, maybe under that layer of honest truth is some more witty satire.
and seriously, what’s that “Baba O’Riley” riff doing in shots section of “Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes”?? i agree with the allmusic.com reviewer:
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?)
so does it matter? i don’t know, but it leaves me confused–and i don’t really like that. in the end i can’t say that i love them and i won’t say that i hate them. but damn, now i’ve a one of their riffs in my head. there you go…
