You had your chance!

I sold out.

Speaking of which, I saw Fall Out Boy yesterday, in Cleveland, with a stomach full of White Castles. I've always felt conflicted about that band. On one hand, I really like the music, but on the other hand, I generally roll my eyes at the mere mention of the band's name. It's a hell of an eye-roll, too, the likes of which I've only ever reproduced in high school. You know, when some asshole tells you that you need to "apply yourself and you'll be able to do so much!" And you're thinking, "I do apply myself, only I apply myself to things like smoking weed and getting drunk and beating up middle schoolers when I'm all fucked up on absinthe."

So last night I've reached a definitive conclusion, which is that Pete Wentz is the least talented member of that band, and if he left, I'd actually respect the band and be proud to be a fan, rather than listen to them only on headphones, alone in my room, with the door locked and I'm curled up into the fetal position and not wearing pants. fun fact: that was all one enormous run-on sentence

We'll think about this: Fall Out Boy released Take This To Your Grave and Evening Out With Your Girlfriend, the latter of which they pretended never happened. Both albums had that pop-punk sound to them. Then they got popular, then they released Cork Tree, which caused a lot of people to call Fall Out Boy sellouts because it sounded a little different and you heard it on the radio.

Now, before, I was always just thinking, "Let them grow musically, they haven't 'sold out,' whatever that means. Who cares if it has that pop-rock finish to it? There are plenty of good pop bands."

Then a bunch of shit happened. Taking Back Sunday releases "Spin," which calls out FOB on leaving the scene and totally turning gay and selling out and leaving the scene and shitting on Sid Vicious' grave. Fall Out Boy responds on their new album, Infinity on High, saying that it's stupid for people to fight over "who" FOB's music belongs to, that they don't care if people think it's pop or punk or whatever as long as people like it. This is fair. You shouldn't get pissed at a band for evolving, even if it makes them suck. They're allowed to fuck around.

The problem, then, isn't the music. It's the show. Fall Out Boy should be musicians first, and entertainers second. Pete Wentz turns the band into a fucking circus. Surrounded by drama, and loved by all for being "the hot one," Wentz is a fan favorite and inadvertently became the band's frontman. In the studio, Wentz plays shitty bass and does "backup vocals," which translates as "screaming which is grating on the ears and not only does nothing for the music, but actually makes it worse." Yeah, I've listened to my share of hardcore, but the backup screams in Fall Out Boy's music are just a gimmick. It's incongruent and inappropriate. Which leaves Wentz as a bassist. Wentz is a shitty bassist.

Patrick stump is a better songwriter and Joe Trohman would make a better frontman. However, in the interest of commercial success (which is, at face value, an admirable ambition), the boys in marketing have put Petey on the pedestal and centered the entire fucking affair around him, including one part in the show where the fucker gets shirtless on stage for no reason. The entire show was clearly built around the fundamental idea that Pete Wentz is hot.

You know that girl who a few people (the same people who think Paris Hilton is attractive) think looks kind of good, but then you see her without your makeup and you're like "whoa, man." That's him.

Nonetheless, my problem is that the band has taken their focus away from playing good music - and it is good music - and instead concentrated on stupid emokid drama bullshit stunts and whatever else they can come up with to turn the whole affair into a travesty. I have no issue with Wentz himself (though I probably wouldn't like him if I met him), I just think he's the foundation of the way in which Fall Out Boy has turned themselves into a traveling fucking circus. Except instead of lion tamers, there's just a bassist in girlpants making out with dudes.

I just wrote a page about Fall Out Boy. This makes me want to cut my wri