Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

Fall Out Boy was born in 2001 in the suburbs of Chicago. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. Wentz was primarily involved in the Chicago hardcore punk scene and was in several bands in the late 1990s. He and Joe Trohman, who was the bassist of a different band Wentz was apart of, founded Fall Out Boy after Trohman introduced Pete to a musical acquaintance, Patrick Stump. Andy Hurley agreed to drum part-time, but joined the band full-time later. The name ‘Fall Out Boy’ comes from a character int The Simpsons. After performing around the Chicagoland area for much of 2001, they were discovered by a tiny, independent record company after one of the label-heads heard a demo that Fall Out Boy put on MySpace. The band released their debut album, Take This to Your Grave, in 2003. This album, combined with the growing fan base that the band had formed over the past couple years gave the band mainstream success. According to Wentz, shows began to end in a near-riot and the group were banned from several venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. The band gained further media recognition when the band joined the Warped Tour for five dates in the summer of 2004, and on one date the band had only performed three songs when the stage collapsed due to the large crowd. From there, the band’s music began playing in Hot Topic stores giving them nationwide recognition. The band had been flooded with “hyperbolic praise”, and deemed “the next big thing” by multiple media outlets. The band moved to California in 2004 to begin working on this much anticipated follow up album. From Under the Cork Tree. The album debuted and peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200 upon its May 2005 release. It was spearheaded by two top 10 hits (Sugar We’re Going Down, Dance Dance). The album earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. After a two month break, the band began writing songs for the new album while touring, and intended to quickly make a new album in order to keep momentum in the wake of their breakthrough success. In February 2007, Infinity on High was released. Much like its predecessor, it was a commercial success, spawning a top 2 hit (This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arm Race), and a top ten single (Thnks Fr th Mmrs). The subsequent tour to promote the album sold out in 15 min and grossed over $30 million. They then released a live album in 2008 which included a cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It with John Mayer on the guitar. That song went to chart in the top 20. The pressure to keep the success going was beginning to take a toll on the group, and tensions began to flair up. Folie à Deux, released in December 2008, failed to match the success of Fall Out Boy’s last two albums. This led to further divide amongst the group. Despite this, it managed to spawn a top twenty-five was hit (I Don’t Care). Not shocking at all, the band took a hiatus after the tour for the album wrapped up. During the hiatus, the band members each pursued individual musical interests, which were met with varying degrees of failure. Stump and Wentz met up for the first time in several years in early 2012 for a writing session. The band met in secret to discuss getting back together a couple months later. The entire comeback album was recorded in secrecy and then in February 2013 announced that they were back together by releasing My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark, which eventually hit number 13 on the charts. Save Rock and Roll was released in April 2013, hit number one on the charts and was met with positive reviews from critics. Fall Out Boy continued their career renaissance by releasing their 6th album, American Beauty/American Psycho, in June 2015. It gave them another top ten hit (Centuries). (Full Disclosure, I hate this song, this will be the last mention of Centuries in this blog ever. Thank you for your time). The album also had a top 20 hit (Uma Thurman). For whatever reason Fall Out Boy decided to remix this entire album and collaborate with various rappers and re-work the songs. Look at the track list, it’s as crazy as you think it would be.

They followed this up with MANIA in January 2018 and while it didn’t have any songs chart, it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Album. This is their most recent release but considering they just released a Greatest Hits album in November 2019, I assume we’ll be hearing new songs from them again soon.

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Fall Out Boy is more than a rock band. They have dabbled in every type of musical genre and it somehow works. The best thing about Fall Out Boy is you can play them in the car with your parents because they’d never know if Patrick Stump is cursing or singing about sex because all they hear is fksjajtsothdgahdatkwu.

Toughest Omission: Beat It: This song has no business, and I mean no business being as good as it is. They did what had to be done on this cover. Simple as that.

5. My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark:

Still waiting for an answer on this before I decide whether or not to run for public office. Also Taylor Swift stinks now, but when she was good in 2013, she performed this song with FOB at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. It’s a good performance. Give it a listen if you want.

4. Dance Dance: Despite the title, this is one of those songs that’s impossible to dance to, believe me, I’ve tried. Fall Out Boy missed the mark when they covered Whitney Houston and didn’t call the cover, “I Want to Dance Dance With Somebody.” This video also set unrealistic expectations for what I expected high school dances to be like. I grew up hoping I was Pete, I ended up being Patrick.

3. This Ain’t a Scene It’s An Arm Race: I have no idea what the phrase “this ain’t a scene it’s a god damn arm race” means but whatever it means, I relate to it deeply. A random fun fact to know about this song is that it’s the perfect tempo to administer CPR too as well. You’re welcome for using this fact to help you save a life and then be heralded as a hero.

2. Thnks Fr Th Mmrs: My favorite suppressed pop culture memory is the fact that Kim Kardashian is in this music video. Like sure she’s a multimillionaire hundreds of times over now, but there was a point in time when she was just a girl in a music video where she had to kiss Pete Wentz and a chimpanzee.

1. Sugar We’re Going Down: I looked up the lyrics to this song recently and I’ve literally never ever been more wrong about something in my entire life.

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Anyone who is a fan of Fall Out knows them for their ridiculously long and elaborate song titles. To honor that, I’m going to start a new segment on this blog called News Headline That Can Double As Fall Out Boy Songs

Putting potatoes up your butt won’t cure hemorrhoids, doctors warn

How Many People Have to Die Before We’re Done With Gender Reveals?

Man lost in snow for five days survived on Taco Bell sauce packets

EMT suffers stroke driving ambulance, then colleague who came to help has aneurysm

Out of all the insane song titles Fall Out Boy has, Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends will forever be the best one.

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Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Fall Out Boy song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

Title	Year	Peak chart positions	Album
Sugar We’re Going Down	2005	8	From Under the Cork Tree
Dance Dance	2005	9	From Under the Cork Tree
This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race	2007	2	Infinity on High
Thnks Fr Th Mmrs	2007	10	Infinity on High
Beat It	2008	19	Live in Phoenix
My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)	2013	13	Save Rock and Roll
Centuries	2014	10	American Beauty/ American Psycho
Uma Thurman	2015	20	American Beauty/ American Psycho