ALBUM REVIEW

Fall Out Boy Save Rock and Roll (2012)

I was never a huge fan of this band but I was never in doubt of their ability to deliver a decent record. Their debut album, Take This To Your Grave was a great collection of cleverly written tunes that were equally fun to listen to as they were well-worded. Now, ten years later the band have released Save Rock and Roll, an album with a title which no doubt prompted some raised eyebrows from the community. With a title like Save Rock and Roll you'd usually expect, well... the definition of rock and roll: rebellious attitudes, no tolerance on the sappy pop-shlock you hear on the radio and overall a fun and carefree outlook. It's not hard to hear that this record has none of these things. The opening track 'The Phoenix' starts with a over-the-top cinematic type feeling and it's instantly obvious that the band's sound has developed a dramatic polish that will no doubt expand it's audience to the most brain dead radio-kind. It's not a terrible song but it's almost instantly a step down from their previous material. But still, it's only the first track, maybe the next track will impress me. Umm.... nope. The second track has one of the band's stupidly lengthy titles. Does this mean it's a throwback to their tracks from From Under The Cork Tree? Sadly not. 'My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up)' is the album's lead single and sounds like it's straight off one of those 'Freshest Hits' compilations. It's one of those songs you love when you're twelve and when you grow up you'll look back and say "Look at the shit I used to listen to".  After that we have 'Alone Together' which I hated from the first three seconds. Next. After that we have 'Where Did The Party Go?' which has the worst title for a song I've seen in a long time. Fuck it, I don't even want to listen to it. And it goes on, and on, and on. Rubbish song after rubbish song. As the record goes on it just digs itself deeper into a hole of disappointment. The most vile track I could find on here was 'Rat A Tat' which has the queen of obnoxiousness herself, Courtney Love on guest vocals. Poor old Courtney's really declined since 'Pretty On The Inside' (and even that wasn't such a great record). Save Rock and Roll is like a really bad joke that you don't find mildly amusing from the start and by the end of it you're on the verge of killing yourself. It's just a compilation of previously mentioned disappointment. But maybe I'm being too harsh on Save Rock and Roll. Maybe it's just my hatred for pop music in general that has me tied up about this album and in truth it's a totally solid effort from a band who hasn't lost their edge. While that would be a nice way to end my review, it's not even plausible. Fall Out Boy have been defiled from charismatic, exciting stage performers with a knack for catchy emo-pop/pop-punk to slaves for the mass media and generally a mediocre product of a mediocre music industry. If Fall Out Boy were trying to make an exciting or legitimate attempt to make a pop record it's failed miserably. Patrick Stump can go back to pretending to be a poor man's Justin Timberlake because in a few months this'll be off the charts and nobody will even care about this anymore.

Verdict: 

Green Day American Idiot (2004)

Overview: I'll get straight to the point: this is Green Day at their lyrical and musical peak. It's not punk rock, it's no Dookie, it's not straight out of the Gilman but it rocks harder than possibly anything they've ever done before. While not my personal favourite Green Day record (that award would have to go to Insomniac) their talented songwriting and playing really does show here. There are the big singles like 'American Idiot', 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' but the greatest heights on the record are found on the rhapsodies of 'Jesus of Suburbia' and 'Homecoming'. It just goes to show how much a band can change and how change can be very special for a band, especially one as prolific as Green Day.

It's music review thyme! Okay, so I've decided to start doing reviews of albums and stuff so I'll be starting with Days Go By by The Offspring! I'll be doing this track-by-track.

Okay, so I went to some second hand shop the other day and I bought a couple of CDs really cheap so I thought I'd do a quick review of the ones I got! Here goes:

Okay!

I'm thinking of writing a short comic strip in Japanese!

Considering my limeted (but still existent) knowledge of Japanese this should be interesting....