The Phoenix – Fall Out Boy

Fallout Boy are, to many, the My Chemical Romance it’s OK to like. Provided you’re being ironic. Or something.

They’re also the best pop group in the business of being a pop group at work in the USA this (as in the 21st) century. They’re possibly the American Arctic Monkeys and they’re so under appreciated by critics and taste-makers that it takes the armies of kids around the world who love them (without following any one particular trend) to keep them center stage.

Their back catalog has a startling mix of the sort of Green Day lite pop rock you can hum as you deliver your milk round and witty subversive humour that would only work here and now in the new millennium.

Take The Phoenix as a for instance. It’s a big blustery rock anthem made of string section samples and a pounding drum track. The vocal is a rabble rousing boast of Hip Hop proportions and rock iconography

“Put on your war paint! You are a brick tied to me that’s dragging me down, Strike a match and I’ll burn you to the ground, We are the jack-o-lanterns in July setting fire to the sky, Here comes this rising tide, so come on”

Then there’s the masterfully FOB bit;

“Hey young blood, doesn’t it feel like our time is running out? I’m gonna change you like a remix, Then I’ll raise you like a phoenix”

A rock band could not have got away with that lyric in 1999 unless they were The Bloodhound Gang.

The fact that kids are listening to this in the era of Bieber and Will Smith’s offspring gives me hope.

F.O.B are 4 Real

They’re so good I’m declaring this Fall Out Boy season. In one day. Expect a bunch more FOB in your inbox this very day.

I love Fall Out Boy so much I did think of dedicating a whole week to them. Instead you’re getting 24 hours of Fall Out Boy Blitz.