Heartbreak Sounds So Good
Via Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy made their long-awaited return with their highly anticipated eighth studio album, So Much (For) Stardust. It has been around 5 years since they released an album, and that, coupled with a massive summer tour, listening parties, and small pop-up shows, made this album the only thing on my mind. After a somewhat controversial release with their previous album, Mania, Fall Out Boy heads back to their guitar heavy roots and classic pop punk sound without making a throwback record.
Despite an overwhelming number of fans claiming they want the old Fall Out Boy back, bassist Pete Wentz specifically did not want to make a throwback record and relive the glory days of the early 2000’s. When you’ve been around for over 20 years, it would be easy to fall back on what works and play it safe - but where is the fun in that? Experimenting with a new sound is what makes So Much (For) Stardust so great. It opens with the hard hitting “Love From The Other Side” that immediately hooks you and builds anticipation for the rest of the album. It is followed by the groovier, bassier “Heartbreak Feels So Good” that beautifully showcases singer Patrick Stump’s vocal abilities. Both songs explore the idea of never feeling good enough masked behind upbeat and cynical lyrics. One of my favorites from the album is “Fake Out”. It has an indescribably nostalgic feeling and perfectly depicts the feelings of inadequacy and unwillingness to let yourself be loved. It is lyrically heartbreaking and will hit close to home if you have ever been insecure about how friends and lovers feel about you when you are not around.
The album takes a cinematic and optimistic turn at the half-way mark. “The Pink Seashell”, a spoken interlude by Ethan Hawke, makes the best of what life has to offer. While it might seem vast and empty like the roaring sound you hear inside a seashell, it is important to stop and romanticize the little victories and seemingly trivial things that make life worth living. After the short interlude, the album steers back in the direction of self-sabotage and heartbreak with “I Am My Own Muse” and “Flu Game”. Similarly to “Fake Out”, the eleventh track on the album, “The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)” invokes that same nostalgic feeling of a wasted and hazy youth. It is full of insecurity and regret for lost time. In classic Fall Out Boy fashion, “What a Time To Be Alive” is a catchy and upbeat track with a deceivingly positive name and disposition. It is sarcastically critical of the world we live in, likening it to the apocalypse and a sinking ship.
The album closes out with the title track, “So Much (For) Stardust”, and comes full circle with a heavily pessimistic outlook on life. It poetically paints life out to be very bleak and never living up to your expectations. This album is a great reminder of the incredible lyricist that Pete Wentz is and the emotions that his words invoke. So Much (for) Stardust expertly fuses the themes of loneliness, inadequacy, and the highs and lows of life that Fall Out Boy has always written about with dynamic guitars, cinematic melodies, and an experimental and exciting new sound that calls back to their roots without simply being a throwback album.