At the beginning of the 1990s, it was hair bands whose bubble burst; then at the start of the millennium it was boy bands.  Now, a new breed of pop rock uselessness- the artistic equivalent of American Pie III- has emerged to remind us of why music like this has NO SOUL and NEVER lasts.  The poster child for this downward spiral, FALL OUT BOY is the new Satan of rock n' roll.  Though no one would ever kill themselves as a result of the band's lyrical message, they might be driven there if it were their only opportunity to escape listening to the pure garbage that is composed of song titles like "You're Crashing, But You're No Wave" and "The Carpal Tunnel of Love."  It doesn't take a leap off a building- or of any other kind- to wonder why.

My theory- that the Internet and advent of illegal downloading has both helped and HURT VERY BADLY the quality of the album-oriented rock format (AOR):

1.) the money it has robbed from record labels' abilities to justify investing both the money in the recording budgets for albums to have the quality they did for years prior to the download phenomenon, and 

2.) the ability of labels to afford to give bands the time to grow artistically over the course of several albums without worrying over whether each makes back its recording budget.  

For YEARS, from the 1960s on through the end of the 1990s, bands often broke on their second or third album, because record labels could AFFORD TO INVEST IN AND CARE about quality albums.  In the 1980s, some of the BIGGEST recording budgets ever recorded were paid out to bands who in turn produced master pieces within their various musical genres, and labels in turn made a fortune in profits because the hands of art and commerce washed one another.

That landscape has erased almost completely in recent years, and with the bankruptcy of Tower Records- one of the country's PREMIER supporters of new bands- its virtually assured never to return.  In its place is processed crap by fly-by-night s***bags like Fall Out Boy who are assured to sink the ship entirely unless people begin to care again about the substance of the music the soundtrack to their lives is based upon.

You think I'm being too critical of the flash-over-substance tag, then WHY is it that EVERY press shot of Fall Out Boy that accompanies a news item or article typically features ONLY bassist Pete Wentz, the only �rock star' looking member of the group? Rock n' Roll was always guilty of focusing on the visual appeal of its stars as much as it did their music, but then they were legitimate STARS, which Fall Out Boy could NEVER, EVER BE.  You think I'm wrong: you'd ever compare any of the members of this band to the members of Rolling Stones, or Guns N' Roses, or Motley Crue, or Nirvana, or Alice in Chains, or Stone Temple Pilots, or Aerosmith, or the Talking Heads, or the Cure, or Sonic Youth, or any number of other bands who could deliver the goods both musically and visually- today NEITHER exist.

We're left with an imbalanced system that focuses almost entirely on the moment, and not the long term in a band's career, mostly because it's a foregone conclusion they WON'T LAST if bands like FALL OUT BOY continue to represent what pop rock has to offer.  
 
 

Shameless Plug: I have nothing I would want to plug in the same breath with this HORRIBLE and DANGEROUS band, so I'm taking this one off.

About the author: Jake Brown is owner/operator of Nashville-based Versailles Records and a biographer who has published several books. Click here to more details.