Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High (CD)

All Music Guide

A funny thing happened to Fall Out Boy on the road to Infinity on High: they got famous. Before 2005's From Under the Cork Tree they were just another poppunk unit from suburban Chicago happy to break even at shows with gas money. Next thing anyone knew, they were headlining arenas and being heralded as the new face of poppunk alongside their peers in My Chemical Romance. It was a position that never seemed to rest easy with the guys, and because of this, Infinity on High seems a bit conflicted. Fall Out Boy wants to charm everyone here. They want to prove themselves to critics by moving past the confines of emo, allowing a love of all things pop to come right to the forefront. Yet they also want to resonate directly with those dayone fans who may long for the intimate VFW shows of yesterday. This disparity makes points of the record seem awkward, and for the first time, the band appears to overthink things. Pete Wentz' lyrics are oftentimes full of resentment, full of fameinduced angs...t, and really emphasize Wentz's need to drive home his position that stardom has not changed the band.So it's in weird contrast to these sentiments that JayZ is the one opening the album and calling out haters who said FOB would fail. The glorification of their celebrity abruptly switches into Patrick Stump stating (pleading?) that the band is not buying into the hype nor do they even want it. "Make us poster boys for your scene/but we are not making an acceptance speech" is defiant, and when his sweet voice asserts "Crowds are won and lost and won again/but our hearts beat for the diehards," it's clear that FOB still hold their roots close. But this is contradicted by the fact that the album's majority is far and away their poppiest material to date, more pop/rock than poppunk, which inevitably means more interesting to those who know them just as that "Dance, Dance" band with the mediawhoring bassist, Pete Wentz. Read more Less