Unique, all pun lyrics that you find yourself copy and pasting into your status, check. Catchy guitar riffs that make you dance like a maniac despite how much you don’t want to, check. Oh, oh, oh’s that get stuck in your head for hours, check. Vocals that are filled with just enough angst to get you screaming along, check. An ordering of tracks that makes you wonder if these boys are the musical genuis’ of our generation, check. Beats you can feel in your heart, check. One amazing CD that you can have on repeat all day, strike that, all year and still find things to be amazed by, check.

            Chicago based pop-punk, sometimes labeled emo band Fall Out Boy, will capture your heart in the 13 track album, From Under The Cork Tree. Vocalist Patrick Stump’s slightly raspy voice belting out bassist’s Pete Wentz’s Lyrics will get down into a place inside that will have your blood racing. Joe Truhman’s guitar riffs are catchy, and Drummer Andy Hurly’s beats will pump your heart right along with them. 

            In RhythmCreation’s article on what makes a great album, they list 10 things. To be a great album it has to stand apart from the other albums of the time, make you want to listen again, no urge to skip through tracks, a general flow, something you want to stay in your album collection for at least a good 10 years, makes you think and feel, artwork that complements the music, a good ordering of tracks, memorable and a general appeal to reach more than a small slice of the music listeners. Now Under the Cork Tree applies to all of this criteria.
            One of the things that strike me the most about Fall Out Boy’s sophomore album is the flow, ordering of tracks and general appeal. It is almost impossible to skip a track on this album unless you are specifically looking for a song. Each track adds something. They tell a story themselves but together they tell an even better story. The first song, Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Don’t Get Sued, starts out with the clicking of the paparazzi noise. Instead of opening up with a song that has rockin’ guitar riffs from the first millisecond, it’s a sound effect. The song essentially makes fun of themselves and their newly found fame. With lines like, “We’re only liars, but we’re the best. We’re only good for the latest trend.” Another song later in the album, Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year follows the same lines of poking fun of themselves as a band, but on a slightly more serious note. They capture your attention from the get go. As you move through the album, all the songs flow and bond together with the catchy lyrics and beats the will never get out of your head, not to mention the obscenely long names that will get a giggle or two. This makes the album smooth. But is also versatile with slower ballad-types like I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That You Should Shut Your Mouth, and all out dance like a maniac tracks like A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me. As you get further in the album, the songs gradually become more angsty, and more melodic. The thing that makes this album superb though is some of the flow from one song to the next. When track 8 (Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year) ends, track 9 (Champagne for my Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends) begins on the same note. However, my favorite thing about the album would have to be during the distressed, spoken-word monologue at the end of Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying, it seems to be building up to something. Imminently after the last word is spoken, the next song beings, with maybe just a quarter of a second pause at the most. It seems like it was building up to the next song, since the flow perfectly into each other. Sometimes when the album is playing in the background, and focus is elsewhere, it seems like they are one completely astounding song.

            Each song generates a feeling, an experience. Even if you can not personally relate (which I think is impossible, for the metaphors can be taken a million different ways), the lyrics and Patrick Stumps voice will make you feel like you are living the story of the current song. In the oh, oh, oh filled Of All the Gin Joints, In All The World, it has the feeling of that ‘I like you, you like me, where do we go from here’ type situation that everyone has been at some point in life. No matter what Pete Wentz’s original intention was of writing the lyrics, they can be easily twisted to compare to anyone’s life. Although Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year is initially about where the band was going, it also tells the story of having to grow up, but feeling like your just going down. It is one of the best songs on the album, with Patrick’s voice touching the very core of anyone who listens and Pete’s incredible lyrics.

            They say that good music is written through hard times, well this could not be truer in Pete Wentz’s case. Prior to this album Pete became very depressed leading to finding him parked in a best buy parking lot with the previously recorded album playing on repeat and too much Atavan in his system. He was questioning his future in the band, and his future in general. This led to a link in the songs about being hopeless, confused and just generally fucked in life. The song I Got A Dark Alley and a Bad Feeling You Should Shut Your Mouth about his suicide attempt. Through the ashes of depression rose Fall Out Boy’s best written, arranged, and all-around-everything album.

            Fall Out Boy broke into mainstream and MTV with this album, soon starting a revolution of punk-pop, emo, and power-pop bands taking the airwaves by storm. They pushed over the Britney’s and Kanye’s that we’re on the charts and once again make a place for a rock subgenre on the top 40 charts. They we’re just groundbreaking, they we’re earth shattering.

            I can listen to this album for the rest of my life, and be perfectly satisfied. It has everything an epic album needs. I have never skipped over a track, thinking ‘eh that’s just not a great song’, and every time I listen to it I find something new, an insightful lyrics or a part of the song that I never noticed how impressive it was before. It’s full of hidden trap doors that lead to electrifying music. I can’t just listen to it once, but over and over until I am sufficed. The feel of the album is incredible, and relatable to anyone who dares listen. And the oh’s and ah’s just won’t get out of my head all day

It is not going to be about just “hardcore” but all types of music

I would bore you with the details about why i’m changing it, but i’m sure my personal history has nothing of interest to you. Lets get real, your here for the music.

Now i will admit Punk and Hardcore are different in more ways than i can list. But your foolish if you think that they are completely different enities. Punk birthed hardcore. They both have that gritty, fuck the system, angry core (the new Posi hardcore excluded). How many shows have you been to where they shout “Fuck the Police” or something along those lines? If you think thats orginal then you need to get evaluated.
Lets travel back thirty years ago. Lets look at the birth of punk, and one of the most influncial bands in alternative music. Across the seas, in a scummy bar, lies the Sex Pistols. Back then being punk was being authentic. Not conforming. But at the same time punk is about putting on a fascade. It aspires for success, a break through, but it revels in its glamourous destructiveness. How can an anti-corprate message come through after the corprate bullshit that comes with making a hit record. It’s a contradiction that every punk musican has to fight. Johnny Rotten searched for authenticy with his music after the break up of the Sex Pistols. But his first album was over shadowed by the tragic but facinating death of his former friend and bandmate Sid Vicious. This is proof that is is not just about the music but the reputation, the image. Johnny Lydon was no longer Johnny Rotten (and not just because McLaren lay claims to the name and Lydon had to leave it behind with The Sex Pistols). But John Beverly was still Sid Vicious. He became Sid Vicious when he joined the band, and died as Sid Vicious. He became his persona and forgot the polite teenager that was John Beverly. Even former manager McLaren searched in authenticity in the video telling the story from his point of view, The Great Rock N Roll Swindle. This video had an erie performance by Vicious himself. My Way almost told the end of Vicious’ story before it happened.
Ask anyone what they think of when you say The Sex Pistols and a majority of the time you will here Vicious’ name. But if you ask for the most talented person in the band, the answer will not be the same. Vicious was by far the most memorable person of the band. He was not famous for his prodigious bass playing skills. But he was famous for his destructive behaviour. Another example, it’s not always about the notes or words that are being heard but false exterior that is being presented.
The intial violence of punk was more fake, but as it came out fake it morphed into real demons for the listeners and the crowd. I have this theory about poor Sid. I would how that you would know that Sid wasn’t an orginal part of the Sex Pistols. Glen Matlock was the orginal bassist, who Sid replaced in early 1977. Sid was more than a follower of the Sex Pistols back when Matlock as the bassist, he was a die hard fan. He was a fan first, then a member. A majority of the time the crowd, the fans are more brutal than the actual band. For example at a recent Emarosa show i went, Emarosa isn’t the hardest shit out there, but the moment the started playing The Past Should Stay Dead the crowd went fuckin’ crazy. In the crowded confides of Club Infinity, it was chaos. Some punk and even hardcore is ironic and meant to be humorous. But the crowd forgets that. For example there are plenty of people who are under the impression that Life Ruiners is a sxe band. When in fact it is not, but it has a massive sxe fan base. My theory purposes that this was one of the problems of Vicious. He was a fan first. He saw the persona of Rotten and the rest, and thought that was the real them. But it was all fake. Like for example in April of 1976 Westwood started a fight at a venue because he thought the set was too boring. It was all for the sake of apperances. So when Sid joined that band and took on the Persona of Vicious, it became him. It swallowed him whole.
Do we really know the voice behind the music on our ipods? Johnny Rotten, Lil Wayne, Missy Elliot there all an apperance. The people behind the masks can be completely different.
In a way it’s all fake. The Ramones influnced the UK punk scene heavily, even though they are not even from The UK, they are from New York City. The Americas boys.  “Was it Sex Pistols in England? Was it the Ramones and the Velvet Underground in New York? Is it the Ramones? Is it the Sex Pistols? Who cares who started it? It’s music. I don’t know who started it, and I don’t give a fuck. ” (SLC Punk).
See Matther Lillard’s Character is trying to say that it shouldn’t matter where it came from, who started it, or who did it better. It should be about the music. But it never is. Back in the 70’s when the Sex Pistols got big, Back in the 80’s where SLC Punk was set, and all threw now, Punk, Hardcore, Grindcore it’s partly about the same thing, who was there first and who did it to the most extreme. It’s fucked up but it’s true. On some level it’s not even about the music. It’s about the fuckin’ mask, the reputation, the presense. For example, Bring Me The Horizon is known as the offical band of the Scene Kids. But if you really think about there is alot of bands that sound like BMTH, but are not outright labeled as Scene. BMTH has a scene reputation because of the frontman, Oli Sykes. Oli Sykes has the scene look and the fan base of teased hair 15 year old scene girls. The other bands that have a simalar sound but do not have the same reputation. This is an example about how it’s not about the music anymore.
Music now is composed of everything. So in a way it’s the fakest it’s ever been, and in a different way it’s completely orginal in it’s arrangement and use. Powerpop now has breakdowns. Hardcore now has dubstep. It’s beautiful and disasterous. It’s strange and compelling. Most importantly, it’s new.
The trends, the music will come and go. Slowly fade. But the fans need for something angry, fast and relatable will stay. Along with the personas put on to support the ideas of the fans. It’s not just about the music, remember that.

“And you thought we were faking it” - Sex Pistols.

your posts are geaaaat :D and you

This is for all you who know what this life we live is about. Who can feel the music coursing through your veins, and know that it’s an addiction. Who has a venue that feels like home, where you know the staff and they know you. Who will spend your last penny on a show and starve for a week. Who listen to music in the shower, while getting ready, while working out, while doing homework, while going to sleep, and just about every other moment of the day. Who have a million playlist for a million different things. Whose perfect night consists of a second family, a great band, a crowded sweaty venue, and a feeling that is pretty much like exctasy. All you who are already planning your schedule for next month around what shows you want to go to. For those of you who don’t know what your life would be like without music, no idea where or who you would be. With tattoos dedicated to music, band and lyrics. Whose walls are covered with memorbilia and posters. Those who will only buy your band merch from the shows and not a mass corprate producer that is hot topic. Those with a crowded itunes.

For those like me.