About the year 2005, one of my friends showed me over YouTube a music video about a lonely young boy with deer antlers, saying that it's from a band called Fall Out Boy, about to break out in the music scene with their brand new single, "Sugar We're Going Down." The band, as I thought, was really nothing new to me, as I have remembered watching "Saturday," their second music video (as far as I can remember, "Grand Theft Autumn" was the first one) that was all about card-wielding and set-wrecking as solid punk rock music was playing in the background. However, I have not paid much attention nor raved about it, primarily because there are a lot more served at the plate during that time: My Chemical Romance has just released Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, Finch is still caught up with the craze of "What it is to Burn" and is about to release their second major album, and New Found Glory still has everyone singing to old songs in their new tunes, with the more "mainstream" bands The Ataris and Dashboard Confessional having just contributed a few songs to the Spider-Man soundtrack. At that time, Fall Out Boy was nothing more than a band that waits for an opportunity to emerge and accommodate a wider audience, and with "Sugar," I've had that feeling that they are going to be big.
And grew big they did. A few months after, "Sugar" rose to the charts, and they immediately had to follow it up with "Dance, Dance." Their third full-length album From Under The Cork Tree rose the charts and Fall Out Boy eventually made some noise not just within the punk-rock kids, but even in the major music channels and websites like Yahoo! Music and MTV.com, beating out . Slowly, the rag-tag punk-rock band that Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley gained the fame and glory that many punk-rock fans think they deserved. Simply put, Fall Out Boy became the thing of the scene, singing about teenage romance and maturity problems coupled with hard guitars and occasional Wentz screams.
The band made the most of their success as they succeeded in releasing another music video while promoting their old material, both from Fall Out Boy's Evening With Your Girlfriend (their least mentioned mini-LP) and Take This To Your Grave. With the chain of tours, promotions, and performances, the followers of Fall Out Boy, whose numbers, looked forward to their promised third full length album.
As with all punk rock bands, many were actually hoping that the band would go with the flow and continue making those rough, punk rock songs that has gained the attention of the world. Will it be a better version of Cork Tree, as if it wasn't good enough? Would they return to their Chicago-style indie/garage look but with a touch of that catchy riffs and melodies that made them popular?
Indeed, there were a lot of speculations, but when Infinity on High came out, all of them were ruled out, much to the dismay of the majority. Come year 2007, Fall Out Boy brought out new music that has not been expected of them, starting out Infinity with an "under new management" message, as a few lines from Jay-Z started "Thriller," the first track of the album. They fired shots off the emo scene with their first music video, "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race," which was somehow read as a lack of gratuity for the scene that made them famous in the first place. From these, the message is clear enough: take it or leave it, Fall Out Boy is going to take things to a different direction. It's not that they are going to pull the plug on the past, but it's just that their creative energies took them to a different level.
Surprisingly, such shift in direction did not even lead to the decline of the band. In fact, they continued to rise with the new music, eventually reaching their highest point. Fall Out Boy eventually became a household name, thanks to endorsements and promotional tours here and there. The band also paved way for the rise of other acts signed under their previous label Fueled by Ramen, as well as Wentz's own Decaydance Records, such as Cobra Starship, the now-disbanded The Academy Is..., The Cab, and Paramore. Wentz later on established Clandestine Industries, his own clothing company, which basically highlights and makes available on the market the band's own fashion preferences. Advertisements, cameo appearances, and TV performances filled their schedules. Sure, punk rock kids bashed and labeled them "Sell Out Kids," but this did not stop the band's rise to fame, even dedicating their third video for Infinity, this time for "The Take Over, The Break's Over" for their fans of the past and present, with a message from Wentz's dog Hemingway telling everyone to give the boys a break, for, like all things, they do change.
The band waited and worked for more or less two years before releasing their fourth studio album Folie A Deux (just in case you missed, it's French for "a madness shared by two"), anticipated by an election-inspired demo album available for download. They pretty much continued from where Infinity ended, but one could notice attempts of going back to their old music in some of their songs,.as well as jabs about the showbiz culture that they have immersed themselves in. In fact, two of the music videos from Folie, the first single "I Don't Care" and "America's Suitehearts," were both subtle comments on the tabloid- and gossip-driven showbiz industry. Besides working on Fall Out Boy's music, Pete Wentz also promoted the song "Tiffany Blews" by publishing a six-series comic book loosely based on the song called Fall Out Toy Works. It seems that with the steady popularity of the band, springing forth from both their supporters and haters, Fall Out Boy still remained to be big, still steady despite all those changes as well as the individual affairs that they have to deal with.
However, despite all of these, the band announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus in November 2009, just a few months after they have released a compilation album entitled Believers Never Die: Greatest Hits (that includes a new single, "Alpha Dog"), a separation that fans speculated to have been hinted by Stump and Wentz in the symbolism of their last music video for Folie, "What A Catch, Donnie." At that time, such announcement caught fans and supporters by surprise. How can this successful band, who continues to conquer the airwaves decided to just take a break and, in a sense, move on from what they have gone through? But at that time, the final word has been said. Indeed, it was an indefinite hiatus, meaning that the band does not give a definite date when they are set to return, or if they would return at all.
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