Remember when Rolling Stone was relevant? No? Well why not? You mean you don't remember back in the day when RS broke news of Iggy and Bowie, Verlaine and Thunders to a blithely dithering music-buying public?
You mean you don't look back, all misty-eyed, upon an era when Rolling Stone's staff was lousy with iconic journalists like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O' Rourke, the odd sociology scholar-slash-music critic (Greil Marcus) or bad-ass revolutionary-slash-music critic (Lester Bangs) and future legend-photographer (Annie Liebowitz)? You can't recall marveling with secret glee at an early 80's review of punk-rock visionaries The Cramps when RS blessed 'Bad Music For Bad People' with three stars and crowed: "'TV Set' boasts the shittiest guitar solo committed to wax!", a declaration that tweaked your worldview irrevocably (holy shit! bad is good!)?
Brace yourself and get with the Rolling Stone program because...
As of February 6th, 2007, when Fall Out Boy's 'Infinity On High' drops, bad is gonna get even better!
Founding publisher Jann Wenner once wrote that Rolling Stone is "not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces".
So Fall Out Boy's three and a half stars is not just about Babyface-produced quasi-punque emo-schlock but it's also about Fall Out Boy's clothing line and the band's desire to bang debutards in high end hotels.
...Fall Out Boy: bringin' it all back home!
The first paragraph of RS company man-slash-hack Rob Sheffield's review of 'Infinity On High' discusses the band's vast base of non-fans and then goes on to unpack FOB's love of lengthy, super-punctuated song titles ("I'm Like A Lawyer The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You Hum Hallelujah)".
...LOL! (Ow! My head hurts!)
Shockingly, Sheffield mentions Fall Out's songwriting superBoys Stump & Wentz in the same breath as Pete Townshend (and Roger Daltrey but p.s. Roger Daltrey just sang Townshend's lyrics, didn't write them, don'tchaknow) while discussing Wentz' outsized ego and how FOB moves a lot of units. No evidence of Who-ish greatness is posited, just the fact that a lot of people buy their product so that must mean something...eh? Also did you know that Wentz "does the words" (doesn't write the lyrics) and lets Stump "handle the music"? World class scribe, this Rob Sheffield.
Fall Out Boy reminds Rob of John Waite and Night Ranger! You'd have to be deaf or some kinda nerd not to be down with Fall Out Boy!
The first single is "bold" because it rocks a nineties R&B hook that "sounds like Montell Jordan's 'This Is How We Do It'".
Got that, Grampa?
Whoa, dude. Are these guys Beastie Boys, Dead Boys, Fall Out Boy or Backstreet Boys? Hell, their first single boldly debuts on the Billboard chart this week at number two while quoting a groove so tired it makes The Chicago Bears' 'Super Bowl Shuffle' sound like Sly & The Family Stone's 'Family Affair'.
They're Crazy Like A Fox Boys!
In conclusion, Sheffield asserts that Fall Out Boy is really famous and some people like them while others don't. In case you're a member of the latter group, Sheffield reassures us that Stump has sex pics online and then goes out on a limb to conjecture that Stump would maybe like to tap some of that Lindsay Lohan ass. Now that you know they're not Gay Boy and so obvs. you're a card-carrying member of the Fall Out Fanclub, you'll agree that Fall Out Boy "deserves every bit of their success" because "they expose the secret life of boys in hilariously bloodcurdling detail".
As for the music itself? Um...ah...Fall Out Boy is...erm...famous.
Rolling Stone: The thinking man's Maxim.
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2 comments:
Rob Sheffield's new memoir Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time is getting rave reviews and selling really well. About his dead wife. The title has been making me sick.
How this sub-literate shill has a writing career at all is way beyond my grasp of how the world works.
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