When
I say that My Chemical Romance will reunite in five years it's kind of a hope
and kind of a joke, but it's also a Fall Out Boy reference. That should make
more sense after this post.
My
Fall Out Boy familiarity started with "Dance, Dance" and "Sugar
We're Goin' Down". The next video was "This Ain't A Scene; It's an
Arms Race" and it was not nearly as random as it seemed. Once I saw
"A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me", the vampires
made sense, and I recognized the priest at the funeral, and then later on I
started to get the references to other videos.
Even
without understanding those references, there were some things that came
through. Starting with the collapsing mock-ups of people at the dance, it
starts with a feeling that everything is fake, and then leads to things
superficial and shameful and not so fun. The image that stuck with me most was
the photographer getting Pete to expose more and more, and there's this sense
of disgust. Female objectification happens more, but it doesn't make me feel
any better about male objectification.
One
thing I have learned in preparing to write this is that there were many videos
that I still had not seen, but the ones I found then were "Dead On
Arrival", "Thnks fr th Mmrs", "The Take Over, the Breaks
Over", "I Don't Care",
and "America's Suitehearts".
"Dead
On Arrival" reminded me of the early video for "I'm Not Okay",
and "America's Suitehearts" made me feel like there was an acid trip
behind it (probably just the color scheme), but the rest went along with that
feeling of fame not being so fun. There is abuse, there are imposters, there is
obnoxious behavior associated with out-of-control musicians, but also there is
the knowledge that they could be replaced by monkeys (chimps, actually - there is
a monkey, but only running the clapperboard).
Having
seen all the videos now, the only real difference between the videos from Take
This to Your Grave and From Under the Cork Tree is quality. The
concepts might be a little better on the second album, but the real jump is in
film quality and execution. After that the themes change and it gets darker.
"I'm
Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me &
You)" is the exception, being for a charity, and maybe that's the good
part of fame. They aren't in the video much, but when they are, they look
really happy. The other videos that were new to me, with sinking ships, loneliness,
death, and literally being put out as trash, speak to a certain amount of
disillusionment. Even in "America's Suitehearts" on
additional viewing (and yes, reading about it on Wikipedia) you can see themes
of media and celebrity and corruption.
I
don't want to give the impression that the band was just whining and feeling
sorry for themselves. They were finding some clever concepts, getting friends
involved, and their playing style looks really fun. It's just that when
"Arms Race" changes to Pete waking up from a dream, and it is back to
crummy hotel rooms and cramped vans, that's a happy ending.
So
I guess for me, their "Alpha Dog" is like MCR's "Kids From
Yesterday", where you have a clip video saying there's been some good
times, but we're out of here. We need to be out of here. And when MCR after
having one album about death, and then one album about a dystopian future where
they all die, and somehow they don't end up finishing the album about a support
group for parents of dead children, but there is the song about faking your
death and walking away, yeah, sometimes you need a break.
There
are a lot of things that can go wrong between personalities, which may be
especially true of artistic, sensitive personalities, and life on the road has
its highs and lows, but I have been thinking more lately about how awful fans
can be sometimes.
I
don't get it, because if I really thought that one band member had sold out the
others, or cheated and betrayed someone who helped them, I think I would stop
following them, and not be back the next day as if I had never said anything
ugly. I do think sometimes identities get mixed up, and fans can get a sense of
ownership that can turn pretty ugly.
I
suppose the logical thing to say would be that if you love a band, don't treat
the members like garbage, but I'm a pretty big advocate of not treating people
like garbage in general. Maybe the lesson is to remember that musicians are
people.
Anyway,
Fall Out Boy took a break, and then they came back. There are interesting
things about that, for both the music and the videos, as well. That's where we
are heading next week.
Related
posts:
Fall
Out Boy video chronology, pre-hiatus
Take This To Your Grave
"Dead
On Arrival"
"Grand
Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy"
"Saturday"
From Under The Cork Tree
"Sugar,
We're Goin Down"
"Dance,
Dance"
"A
Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me"
Infinity On High
"This
Ain't a Scene; It's an Arms Race"
"The
Carpal Tunnel of Love"
"Thnks
fr th Mmrs"
"The
Take Over, the Breaks Over"
"I'm
Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me &
You)"
Live in Phoenix
"Beat
It"
Folie à Deux
"I
Don't Care"
"America's Suitehearts"
"Headfirst
Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet"
"What
a Catch Donnie"
Believers Never Die - Greatest Hits
"Alpha
Dog"
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