Do people still like Fall Out Boy? Did they ever really? That’s a serious question I ask myself every time the band has released new music. Well, here we are in 2023, and Fall Out Boy has dropped their pseudo-comeback record, So Much (for) Stardust.
It sounds like… Fall Out Boy, I guess?
As a Chicago guy of a certain age in the early 2000s, I caught Fall Out Boy a few times before they hit it big. Small sweaty clubs here and there. Even a mall. I don’t say that in a hipster sense as if I once thought they were good but now they’re terrible. I say it because I’ve kind of seen them rise through the ranks.
With that said, their mainstream success never gave me butterflies in my stomach. Sure, it was cool to hear “Sugar We’re Going Down” on the radio, but I didn’t have the natural affinity for them. I rarely thought, “Ah, nice! Some local boys made it!”. In fact, I didn’t really think too much about them until I started hearing that song everywhere.
Fall Out Boy were fine and all, but were they really worthy of the popularity? It all felt sudden, unnatural, and reeked of industry planting.
By the time 2004 rolled around, I was already bored with third-wave emo and outgrowing the Warped Tour fandom. Yet, here was this band making it worse and attracting a younger and younger audience. I simply didn’t get it.
When Fall Out Boy announced a hiatus in 2009, I shrugged and thought that was that. Then they emerged a few years later with music targeting the same age group they targeted in the early 2000s. And now they’re back again in 2023!
How was this band staying this popular for so long? Why did I find this so fascinating? Why did I even care?
With the band’s history and my personal experiences out of the way, let’s ask the real question:
How does So Much (for) Stardust stack up against the rest of the Fall Out Boy catalog?
Well, it’s overproduced hook-heavy pop-punk bops that sound far closer to Disney Channel than CBGBs. That’s really it. Nothing original or unique. Just the music equivalent of Peeps.
Here’s the problem: With such an emphasis on hooks and upbeat tempos, this album should be a timeless romp. Instead, the entire record sounds like the soundtrack to a Hollister store on a continuous loop stuck in the late ’00s. Essentially, So Much (for) Stardust is made up of digitally distorted guitar, hand claps, auto-tuned harmonies, and pretty-boy poetry fluff lyrics.
“Love From The Other Side” sounds like an alternate reality where Panic At The Disco didn’t make rock music for 12-year-olds. “So Good Right Now” is the worst Katy Perry song she never performed. “What A Time To Be Alive” is as close as these songs ever get to reaching average. That is until you realize it’s just an Abercrombie & Fitch redux of Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” which was a much better song that didn’t feature myopic, eye-rolling lyrics about the pandemic.
The band-out-of-time approach not only weighs So Much (for) Stardust down but puts a nail in the coffin.
Despite Fall Out Boy claiming this isn’t a throwback record, it’s obvious they’re aiming for cross-eyed nostalgia with a cheesy blend of pandemic-related sarcasm. While the world hasn’t really recovered from COVID-19, I think we’re all ready to at least try to move forward. We don’t really need any more pop songs referencing self-isolating or how different the world was in 2019. Then again, you should see the mansions and sports cars these dudes built on the money from writing songs about teenage romance.
So Much (for) Stardust doesn’t sound like a band leading the charge of the resurgence of punk-pop. It sounds like suburban dad’s trying to fit into their 2007 skinny jeans and signing up for TikTok.
I really don’t know if Fall Out Boy sold out in 2005 or if they were industry plants from the start. I don’t really care. But this album doesn’t feel like it has the backing of IHeartRadio. It’s closer to guys using nostalgia as a last-ditch effort to stay relevant. Unfortunately, for the band, no teenager in 2023 is interested in hearing nearly 50-year-olds singing wooooh oooooh ooh choruses, and no millennial hates themself to the point of being nostalgic for 2005.
Do they? Maybe they do. Who is this made for? Not me, that’s for sure.
So Much (for) Stardust is now available for streaming and FallOutBoy.com