so much (for) stardust; fall out boy
mar 28 2023
In 2009, Fall Out Boy went on four-year hiatus due to disillusionment with the music industry and running out of creative energy. In 2017, they went on a second, unofficial hiatus due to their experimental concept album, MANIA, being received poorly by fans. They continued to release EPs consisting of demos and remixes, and spent a substantial amount of time touring with Green Day and Weezer on the Hella Mega Tour, but did not release a new album for six years. Longer than their official hiatus!
So when they announced a new album would be released on March 24th 2023, it was a pretty big deal. I personally got pretty interested when the first single, "Love From the Other Side," was released, hearing a darker and more guitar-focused sound, which I preferred over their increasingly pop-leaning previous albums. I was also really intrigued after hearing that Neal Avron was producing So Much (For) Stardust, seeing as he produced my two favorite Fall Out Boy albums, Infinity on High and Folie a Deux.
The band was very clear in the promotion and marketing of this album that it wasn't just going to be Folie and Infinity pt 2, it was going to be its own thing, which is valid! While I don't really love any of Fall Out Boy's post hiatus stuff (I like a few songs here and there, but don't really love the albums as a whole), I can't stand people who just whine about Fall Out Boy not making albums identical to From Under the Cork Tree. They've evolved, both as people and as artists, and it would be ridiculous to expect them to do the same thing for twenty years. I wish more people were able to just say "It's not for me," instead of acting like everything they do now sucks. My problem with MANIA wasn't even that it was different, it was that it felt half baked. I'm pretty sure there was some kind of dispute with their label surrounding the release of that album— they didn't feel like it was ready, but their label wouldn't let them delay it anymore. They felt rushed into releasing an album to meet contract specifications. This might not be true, but I feel like it definitely says something that Fall Out Boy chose to release their new album under Fueled By Ramen instead of the label Island, which they released all of their other post-hiatus music under.Like I said, I haven't really liked Fall Out Boy's So with my expectations in the toilet, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked So Much (For) Stardust! It's not my favorite album, and I don't think it lives up to Infinity on High and Folie a Deux, but it's such a huge step up from MANIA. I like six songs out of thirteen, and if you discount the two interlude tracks (which I do), that's over half the album! I don't think anything ends up beating the two singles for me, and I prefer the first half of the album over the back half, but I think it closes on a really strong note with "So Much (For) Stardust." There's only one or two songs that I really dislike ("So Good Right Now" reminds me a little too much of Megan Trainor and "Heaven, Iowa" is a Patrick Stump Vocal Flex Song like "Heaven's Gate" from MANIA that I just don't see myself listening to). Most of the songs are just easy to listen to— songs that wouldn't make you change the channel if they came on the radio.
The easy listening of this album is kind of a double-edged sword. I think it really works for what they're going for, and I think it's a good idea to go for a kind of widely appealing, crowd pleaser album after people hated MANIA so much. But there's a sleepiness or softness to this album that makes me miss the frenetic energy of albums like American Beauty/American Psycho, even though I don't love that album. We get hints of this very epic, over the top orchestral fantasy rock opera in songs like "Love From the Other Side" and "I Am My Own Muse" that doesn't really land or develop through the rest of the album.
This is also a smaller problem, but the lyrics of this album can be really hit or miss. Sometimes there were some really interesting and insightful lyrics that felt like a return to form for the band, and sometimes there were lyrics that were so cringe inducing I almost turned the whole album off.
"Everything is lit except my serotonin?" Pete, what the hell are you talking about?
There's also a throughline of lyrics talking about the pandemic throughout this album, lamenting how hard it was and how glad we all are that it's over. This fell pretty flat for me, considering the pandemic isn't over for me and other people like me, only for rich celebrities like Pete Wentz. I'm not saying that the isolation he experienced during the pandemic didn't affect him or that he shouldn't be allowed to talk about his struggles because he's rich, but it just feels tacky for a celebrity who spent the pandemic playing tennis with his private trainer in his mansion to be whining about how hard it was. We all experienced the pandemic, but we did not all experience it equally.
Fall Out Boy delayed the Hella Mega Tour during the worst of the pandemic, but resumed touring in 2021— well before it was "over," and during this time the omicron variant was at its worst. The Hella Mega Tour was a huge tour, with attendance at each show ranging from 20,000 to 75,000 people. These were bona fide superspreader events, and Fall Out Boy even had to drop out of a show due to a team member testing positive for covid.
And I don't think I would care so much about this if Pete Wentz didn't seem to care about what the audience thinks about his struggles. "My pain isn't cool enough," he laments on "So Much (For) Stardust." I'm not saying that his sole purpose here is to get people to feel bad for him or that he's trying to present himself as above criticism, but it does feel like he craves a certain amount of validation from the audience.
I think there was a way for them to talk about the pandemic tastefully on this album, but there's no real exploration or commentary about it. It's just, "Well, thank god that's over, amirite?" There's nothing really there of substance, and it comes off as tone deaf to me. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the album, but it is a part of why I roll my eyes when I read the lyrics sometimes.
Overall, I would give this album a solid 6/10. It feels like a really promising return to form for Fall Out Boy, and gives me hope that they can continue to evolve their sound. They're back on two feet, and now I would like to see them experiment and push the envelope with the same quality and care they've put into this album. I got tickets to one of their summer shows and I'm not only excited to see them perform Folie songs live for the first time in over a decade, but I'm also excited to see the new album in action. This album is solid, but that live shot of energy might be what it needs to take it over the top.