zeegoeshere

I'm sorry that I've been so soapbox-y lately, I blame hormones or something, but my two cents: I see a lot of the hubbub around chan fanart being a result of "protect the children!" moral panic, and I think that creating an 18+ only journal service is giving into that same panic from a different angle. I get that sites and fans want to cover their asses legally, but right now LJ is just covering their asses legally, so if you're all righteously furious about that then you should maybe stop talking about how it's a good move, legality-wise, to make it a bannable offense to be a certain age.

I hate teenagers, but I'm really not going to move to a site that has that policy, ever. I got into fandom when I was 16-ish, and I'm one of the rare fen that never actually lied about my age. For some reason it just never occurred to me? I don't know, I think I'm too lazy to elaborately lie about anything; being up-front about my age and my life was just easier, and I'm always a little surprised at how fandom is all 'well, they can just lie about their age!' when it comes to teenaged fans. Doesn't that kind of encourage Ms Scribe behavior? I mean, what's creepier, a) a 14-year-old reading your porn, or b) a 14-year-old reading your porn and talking to you and pretending to be 24? The latter option is always going to make me uncomfortable. I think that pretending that teenaged fans don't exist is much sketchier for all parties.

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On an entirely different note, I have this post written up that's the beginning of a project I was going to do that basically consist of writing a lot about my reactions to bandom's music and my feelings and associations with songs and albums and really, just writing a shit ton about the music. For FOB, for Panic, for GCH and MCR and TAI and all of the bands that I'm fannish about. Because I got into it more recently, a lot of these albums are still fresh to me, and I want to get down my thoughts about them before I forget anything.

The flaw in this plan is that writing these posts involves listening closely to the music, and when I do that I get immediately distracted by and caught up in the songs, so the only bit I've written up so far is a big long essay/gushing post of embarrassing love about Infinity On High. This post isn't even finished, but I feel like if I stay in the mindset that I have to finish writing up my thoughts on FOB and all the other bands instead of posting, as opposed to just writing what comes to mind when I want to, I will never get anything written about these bands.

So here are my ramblings about IoH, and I didn't even finish all of what I wanted to say, but I figure I can later. The beginning of a series, possibly?



I find it funny looking back that my very first impression of Fall Out Boy, back when metaphoracle sent me some mp3s (this must have been... almost exactly two years ago, yeah), was that all their songs sounded the same. (Also, I disliked Patrick's voice. I know, I know, look, I'm properly ashamed.) Funny because I've spent a serious amount of my time these past few months analyzing different FOB songs and picking my favorites out and obsessing over individual songs. I love this band so much, you guys. I love Patrick's voice and I love Pete's lyrics and I love Andy's drumming and I love the things Patrick and Joe do together on guitar. I'm all pouty because HCT is over and I won't get to see them for a while. I want to see them play in front of me every day.

Anyway--so I didn't really listen to FOB at all until Infinity On High. And then jesus fucking christ wow.

Infinity On High is pretty much it for me. I listened to that album all the way through and then I listened to it again and again and again. It's kind of rare for me to really fall in love with albums--usually if I listen to them all the way through without shuffle on the songs kind of bleed together for me, which I dislike. (And, random sidenote, it always annoys me to see people imply or come right out and say that not listening to albums all the way through or listening to them on shuffle is musical blasphemy, as if the way the artist arranged the tracks is this command from God that can't be broken or something and you're a bad fan if you don't listen to it the way the artist intended. It's music--it's for enjoying in whatever way you want to.) I'm far more likely to get obsessed with individual songs and put those on repeat until I've driven myself insane. I could probably count on one hand the albums that I listen to all the way through on a regular basis, and of those Infinity On High is probably the one I listen to the most.

The thing about Fall Out Boy is that their songs don't sound the same, exactly, but they do tie all the songs on each album together with a particular sound. What always amazes me about Infinity On High is how, yes, that's still true, but each song is so out there. They go to so many different places on this album. Plenty of people talk up the R&B and soul influences, but there's so much more there, too. There's pop and heavy guitar and slow piano and screaming and choruses and songs that you can booty-dance to and songs that rock the fuck out, but they all sound like they belong together. I love, love, love the way the album begins on a crowd whispering and talking and ends on a crowd applauding. (And then the repeat of the murmuring in the middle, at the beginning of You're Crashing..., which I just love.)

I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers is by far my favorite song off the album and pretty much my favorite FOB song, period. It was my favorite from the moment I heard it. It's sort of hard for me to talk about how much or why I love this song so much; it's not a song I 'identify' with, the lyrics don't speak to me any more than most FOB lyrics, it doesn't have any big personal significance. But the music, the way this song begins (with those piano chords, and then the addition of the drums, and then the horns, oooohhhh), the way Patrick sings 'Take one for the team/you all know what I mean' and the way the chorus just--not to get into sentimental over-played language, but it soars, okay? 'The truth hurts more/than anything I could bring myself to do/to you' motherfucking SOARS. The layering of the instruments (including Patrick's voice) is just so fucking brilliant in this song, and I love the changes from the more staccato rhythm to the aforementioned soaring to the guitar riffs. I get chills when all the noise stops at 3:00 and it's just Patrick's voice, the piano again (I am a giant sucker for piano in rock and hip-hop music, ugh) and the guitar. And then the drums come back and UGH. Ugh, I'm just so disgustingly in love with this song. I've put it on repeat more times than I can't. As Infinity On High is to the rest of FOB's music for me, so I've Got All This Ringing is to the rest of IoH.

And now that I think about it, I guess it does have some personal significance. I got ahold of Infinity On High right when my canvassing job with Grassroots Campaigns was starting to go way downhill; not only was the act of canvassing getting harder and harder, I was getting more and more horrified by the company I worked for now that I was in a management position and could see what they were actually doing. Music has always been my #1 coping mechanism, and when IoH came out that was the only thing I ever listened to while out canvassing, and I've Got All This Ringing... especially. I would be taking the Max home at 11:30 and listening to that song the entire way back, and any time I could feel myself wanting to cry while canvassing I would pull my iPod out and listen to that song instead. In my head it's the soundtrack to that whole fucking stupid situation, and I'm so sorry/but not really/tell the boys where to find my body was a refrain that ran through my mind a lot both during the brief period of time when I tried to unionize my employees and then later when I decided to quit.

Sidenote: I don't always pay the most attention to lyrics when I listen to music. Usually I'm way too distracted by the melody and the instrumentation to soak in the words when I listen to songs, and I either don't figure out the lyrics at all or I have to look them up. I usually don't get attached to songs because of particular lyrics so much as because of what the song is doing musically. And I think Fall Out Boy is sort of designed for this kind of listening, especially IoH. There's the layering of instrumentation and the amazing things Patrick does with his voice, plus the fact that Patrick deliberately obscures the lyrics so that half the time you can't understand them anyway. Which isn't to say that Pete writes bad lyrics, because I really really do not think that, but when you *do* absorb the lyrics it adds another layer to the songs and you end up appreciating them even more. Nick Hornby had this line in his book 31 Songs that was something like, he thought that the reason music fans listened to songs obsessively over and over was that we try to 'solve' them--and then once a song is solved it loses its appeal. That's sometimes the case for me and sometimes not, but I do think it's clever of FOB to make their songs a little harder to figure out. I think it gives their songs a lot more staying power and actually gives *more* weight to Pete's words, if that makes any sense.

On to other individual songs--Thriller, okay. One of the first things that piqued my interest about IoH coming out was hearing that Jay-Z was going to introduce the album. My reaction was just so, seriously? seriously? that I had to check it out. And man, the intro to this song never *ever* fails to make me smile. It makes my heart get bigger. Jay-Z with the guitars coming in behind his voice, and then the musical pause when he says 'It's here' and then the crashing of the *real* guitars--gah, gah! It's just so fucking perfect. It feels like such a blend of old and new to me, the Jay-Z words moving into the hard fucking loud pounding guitar. This song really does feel like an anthem to me, like a love note to the fans and to each other and to all their past experiences. And there's something about the chorus: "So long live the car-crash hearts/cry on the couch all the poets come to life/fix me in forty-five." It sounds celebratory and almost ironic, like Pete is admitting that he won't actually ever be fixed and he's *okay* with that, he's *celebrating* it. Long live the car-crash hearts--it's like he's yelling to the world that he might be fucked up, but he's still managed to win. That sort of acknowledging the shitty parts but having a good time anyway is a theme that I think runs through most of the album, and it's something that resonates with me a lot more than some of the more depressing messages in other FOB songs.

Bang the Doldrums, hahaha. I have no idea if this song is actually about Mikey Way, but I really like the interpretation that it is. This was probably the second song from IoH that I got really obsessed with and put on repeat a lot (again, while canvassing--I used to sing 'Best friends/ex-friends til the end/better off as lovers/and not the other way around' to myself in between houses). I love the way it changes between a minor, almost sinister tone in the verses and the crashing joyful major tone in the chorus--again, like it's celebrating the shitty stuff. I also gleefully adore the 'yo ho ho's and still think that FOB should do a pirate AU video for this song. It could be Pete's ship vs. MCR's ship. No, dude, it would be awesome, don't lie. (Also, 'this is a love song in my own way'--I know I just said I don't always pay attention to lyrics that much, but wow, that line hit me where it hurts the first time I heard it and it's stuck with me since. Damn, Pete.)

I didn't fall in love with The After-life Of The Party immediately. The beginning of the song put me off--I don't know, it just sounded weird to me and I would often skip the song because of that. But then I got over my weird issue with the beginning (which I now love, I'm... not sure what I was thinking), and god, this is just such a fucking awesome song. It really is the climax of the record, and one of the reasons I don't tend to listen to IoH on shuffle is because it's such a *perfect* place for the climax. Even though it includes some of Pete's trademark bitter lyrics, this song is completely, entirely optimistic and really not ironic or sarcastic at all. It's ridiculously heartfelt, except not ridiculous at all because it fits. The climax of this song is emotionally manipulative and also kind of expected after the rest of the song, but I don't even care because it just fits so, so well, both within the album and within the song itself. It's bookmarked on either side by two songs that have a much more darker, sardonic feel to them, and that feels right, too. FOB will never be entirely sweet without the bitter, and that's one of the reasons I'm so stupidly in love with them.