billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 24, 2015 (VIDEO)

You know, I actually thought this episode would be a quicker edit than it was. Go figure.

Okay, I think I'm ready for some Fall Out Boy now, bring it on!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 24, 2015

This week, things finally seemed to get back to normal - and to be honest, I was expecting the charts to get a lot worse this week thanks to an injection of new album tracks from reviews I did last week. Instead, it seems like the opposite is true, as no additional Rae Sremmurd tracks landed on the Hot 100 - thank God - and Meghan Trainor had losses across the board. In fact, for the first week ever on Billboard BREAKDOWN, we have no returning entries, just brand-new songs - granted, with more Chris Brown than is healthy for anyone, but hey, we're getting Jhene Aiko, another Fall Out Boy single, and a punk cover of Taylor Swift, I'll take it!

the top 50 best songs of 2013 (PART ONE: 50-26)

Part One, songs 50-26! Enjoy, and stay tuned for part two!

the top ten best hit songs of 2013 - video

So this turned out as well as I expected. List 2/4 done, stay tuned for more!

the top ten best hit songs of 2013

Here's a fun fact about me - as much as I nitpick and criticize and say all manner of things people don't want to hear about the music they love, I've got my own fair share of popular music that I cherish, appreciate, or outright love. Sometimes, quality rises to the top, and while none of this particular list will show up on my upcoming list of the best songs of this year, I still think they're worth mentioning if only to reinforce some vague sense of populism that I have. But really, it's nice to point out that some mainstream music gets popular because it's good, and sometimes pop or country or mainstream hip-hop can be just as good as the most underground of indie hits.

Now the rules are as before: the songs have to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart this year - so as good as 'Die Young' by Ke$ha or 'Some Nights' by fun. are, I can't exactly mention them again on this list after they made my list last year. And on that note, don't expect any sort of coherent theme to these picks. While my year-end worst list had an abundance of terribly vapid luxury rap (especially near the top), on a year as varied and confused as the 2013 chart would indicate, my choices might surprise you. And fair warning: you won't agree with the majority of this list.

So let's get started with some Honourable Mentions, shall we?

video review: 'PAX AM days' by fall out boy

Probably the fastest review I ever made, and it turned out pretty damn good, so that's good too.

Was going to talk about Scotty McCreery next or the Avett Brothers, but it turns out Katy Perry finally dropped Prism... oh, this'll be fun.

album review: 'PAX AM days' by fall out boy

Earlier this year, the legendarily maligned pop punk band Fall Out Boy came back from a five year break to release their newest album Save Rock And Roll, an album that I have rather complicated feelings about. Basically it's an album that works better in pieces that it does as a whole (with a couple of songs that I actually do really like, namely 'The Phoenix' and 'Young Volcanoes'), and the overloaded arrogance and venom towards their neglected fanbase kind of got my nerves more than once. What I did gloss over in my earlier review, however, was that there was something of a sonic shift on the album towards a more electronic-rock sound in the cacophony of the mix. It didn't really bother me - Fall Out Boy always stuck close to a sound that was popular in the pop scene - but it did bother the fans, who were violently split on this album (despite critics mostly being positive to it).

Apparently, though, bassist and primary songwriter Pete Wentz heard it and decided to release a surprise album this year (one that flew so far under the radar I only heard about it fairly recently, and I keep an ear to the ground when it comes to this sort of thing). Recruiting producer Ryan Adams and recording the EP over two days, Pete Wentz stressed that this was something the band for fun, allowing them 'to get some demons out', inspired by Black Flag and hardcore punk from the late 80s and early 90s. 

And here's where I have to confess some of my own ignorance here: I don't know a lot of hardcore punk. I don't mind it - I listen to Black Flag and Fugazi, but I honestly don't have as wide of a frame of reference to the genre. I'm more of a post-punk and anarcho-punk sort of guy, personally, and I'm not the biggest fan of how some of the 'hardcore genres' have evolved over the past few years. That being said, Fall Out Boy returning to a genre they were last close to about ten years ago and being primarily a pop punk band... well, it'd probably be more accessible than jumping straight into hardcore, so why not? How does Fall Out Boy's PAX AM Days turn out?

album review: 'save rock and roll' by fall out boy

From the majority of people I've spoken to, here's the general consensus: if you're my age, you're expected to hate Fall Out Boy.

Well, that's not entirely the case - you're supposed to have some general distaste for the 'emo/scene' culture that began in the early 2000s and lasted until about 2009, at least within the mainstream music scene. Brought upon by what has been coined as 'the death of irony' in the wake of 9/11, the eruption of acts like Jimmy Eat World, The All-American Rejects, Simple Plan, My Chemical Romance, Marianas Trench, Panic! At The Disco, and yes, Fall Out Boy, was the 'rock music' paradigm on the Hot 100, battling it out with post-grunge and the brief indie rock spurt in 2004. These bands ruled the airwaves during my teenage years, and while I never went emo and sported the skinny jeans and bad haircuts and dye jobs, I knew a lot of people who did. But when placed in comparison to the more 'mature' indie rock that has sprung up after the club boom, most people my age have dismissed the  pop rock of the past decade as 'inconsequential', 'pissy', 'self-obsessed', or, more generally, 'shit'.

Now I could make the comment that most music aimed at teenagers can be described as such: the garage rock of the 70s, the synthpop of the 80s, and yes, the grunge explosion and punk revival of the 90s all had their fair share of self-obsessed whinging and whining. Hell, Green Day covered two separate decades of it with their breakthrough in the 90s and their massive comeback with American Idiot in 2004. And like those decades, there is a fair share of great, good, mediocre, and shit music that came out of the pop rock of the early 2000s. Yes, there was a lot of awful, but all things considered, I'd rather listen to Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco over Three Days Grace, Seether, and Theory Of A Deadman any day of the goddamn week.

So yeah, I'll come out and say it: even today, with the benefit of hindsight and a couple of years since their boom in the mid-2000s, I like Fall Out Boy. Like their label-mates and partners in style Panic! At The Disco, both acts liked to blend a variety of musical styles and intricately constructed lyrics into a theatrical explosion, and I'd argue both bands got better as the years went on. Panic! At The Disco followed their Canadian counterparts Marianas Trench by drawing influences from the past and exploring bigger concepts for album statements that actually turned out to be pretty damn awesome. No, I'm serious: for late-period pop rock, Panic! At The Disco pulled a Brian Wilson-esque style shift for 2008's Pretty, Odd and 2011's Vices & Virtues, and Marianas Trench blew their theatrical stylings up to eleven with 2009's superb Masterpiece Theater and the interesting concept album in 2011 Ever After. Seriously, check all four of these albums out, they're all excellent and highly recommended.

Fall Out Boy, meanwhile... sort of went away.

Well, that's not quite true. They reached their commercial breakthrough a little earlier than the other acts, with From Under The Cork Tree in 2005, and achieved massive success with their follow-up Infinity On High in 2007, although due to the turbulence in the music industry, it didn't quite sell as well. And their next record, Folie a Deux, a hard-edged bit of brilliant societal commentary, sold even worse, even though many critics thought it was their best album (I think poor sales could also be linked to the fact that the pop rock boom was entering its downward slide). But after its poor performance, the band disappeared for five years, with the members going onto solo projects with mixed levels of success. In the mean time, pop rock vanished, the club boom happened, and the teenagers who adored acts like Fall Out Boy began to dismiss or ridicule the band in disparaging terms.

And really, I don't entirely blame them. Fall Out Boy achieved mainstream success at the height of the boom, and unlike Green Day, lyricist Pete Wentz's self-obsession initially lacked the social commentary or level of grandiose angst to make it accessible. That was always the interesting thing about Fall Out Boy - their musical themes and delivery were self-obsessed to the point of narcissism, but there wasn't that same level of whininess or 'my life is pain' thematic elements, particularly in comparison to My Chemical Romance. If anything, that's why I think Fall Out Boy's music has aged better than that of most of its peers - while the self-absorption might seem adolescent, it's more tolerable without the teenage insufferability that came with acts like Simple Plan.

People still hated Fall Out Boy for that self-absorption, though, and Fall Out Boy was more often than not lumped in and dismissed with the rest of the emo/scene acts - which, the more I think about it, isn't really an apt comparison when it comes to the music. Fall Out Boy tended towards more genre hopping and exploration, particularly on their later albums, and the lyrics were certainly more thought-provoking. But they wore the same 'scene/emo' image, and they did share a fanbase with the other acts - which is where I think the majority of the hatred of the band is really directed. It's not about hating Fall Out Boy as much as it's about hating the people who were fans of Fall Out Boy, and hating the subculture that Fall Out Boy contributed to with their image and their self-absorption.

Now, granted, Fall Out Boy had its fair share of problems. I'd argue there isn't as much consideration of melody in their songs as there should be, and Patrick Stump's voice could get annoying. But, let's make this statement: Pete Wentz is of the reason people hated Fall Out Boy. Partially because of his lyrics that tried too hard to be clever (and yet occasionally were pretty clever), partially because he did that terrible cover of Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' with John Mayer (yeah, that happened), and partially because Wentz has a monstrous ego. Kanye West has come out and said that Fall Out Boy is one of his favourite bands, and I can see why: both acts are completely invested in telling the story that is them and them only. Fortunately, Wentz had more common sense than Kanye (although one could argue about levels of talent) and was willing to talk about more interesting subjects on Folie a Deux, and while he did frame it all through his perspective, he at least had enough personality to make the story compelling.

But now five years have past, and Fall Out Boy has come out of the smoke of the club boom (which, if the charts are any indication, has finally shuddered to a dead halt) to save rock and roll with their album titled Save Rock And Roll. A title that immediately earned the expected eye-rolls and exasperated snorts from every music critic on the planet. And frankly, I was one of them. Yeah, I like Fall Out Boy, but I know Pete Wentz' head is up his own ass, and with the boom of indie rock, right now, I'm having a hard time believing rock needs saving.

So, does Fall Out Boy convince me?