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Left to right: Pete, Patrick, Joe, and Andy.

Fall Out Boy (or FOB for short) are an American rock band that formed in the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois back in 2001. The band consists of Patrick Stump (vocals, rhythm guitar), Joe Trohman (lead guitar), Pete Wentz (bassist, lyricist), and Andy Hurley (drums). They have nothing to do with the mascot of the Fallout game series, but are instead named after Radioactive Man's faithful sidekick, as Trohman and Stump are diehard Simpsons fans.

While they've tackled a number of genres, the band's most popular and acclaimed work falls pretty squarely under pop punk, and they are considered one of the most influential bands in the genre of their time. They're also regularly considered as one third of "the Holy Emo Trinity"note  alongside Panic! at the Disco and My Chemical Romance, but whether or not they can be classified as emo depends on your definition of emo.note 

Following their rise to prominence in the 2000s, the band went on a hiatus starting at the end of 2009. During this time, Stump started a solo musical effort, Wentz started a dancehall band-turned-EDM act called the Black Cards, and Trohman and Hurley wrapped up work with rock supergroup The Damned Things (also featuring members of Anthrax and Every Time I Die). Andy was also the drummer for Enabler for several years, and Joe started a new band called With Knives (where he does lead vocals). Joe and Andy would later return to The Damned Things in 2019 to make a new record and do touring, while Andy helped form Sect in 2015 and would later take part in Racetraitor's own reunion in 2016, and is still active with both acts.

In 2013, the band confirmed the end of their hiatus as they finished recording their fifth album, Save Rock and Roll; their sixth, American Beauty/American Psycho, was released in 2015. After a cryptic trailer release stunt in Chicago-area movie theaters that went horribly wrong when they didn't air at the time the band advertised, fans eventually discovered what was next: the band's seventh album M A N I A. Originally planned to release in late 2017, the album was instead delayed to early 2018, as the band felt it was being "rushed" and wanted to make something they felt more comfortable with releasing. January 2023 saw the announcement of their eighth album, So Much (For) Stardust, which released that same March.

Other notable deeds of the band include almost getting a Guinness World Record for playing a live concert in all seven continents in nine monthsnote  and actually getting a Guinness World Record for doing the most press interviews within a 24-hour time spannote . They also have a comic called Fall Out Toy Works, a Cyberpunk love story with one big mind screw of an ending — as is to be expected from them.


Discography:

  • Project Rocket / Fall Out Boy [Split EP] (2002)
  • Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend (2003, remastered for reissue in 2005 without the band's consent)
  • Take This to Your Grave (2003)
  • My Heart Will Always Be the B-Side to My Tongue [EP] (2004)
  • From Under the Cork Tree (2005)
  • Infinity on High (2007)
  • Folie à Deux (2008)
  • Believers Never Die-Greatest Hits (2009)
  • Save Rock and Roll (2013)
  • PAX AM Days [EP] (2013)
  • American Beauty/American Psycho (2015)
  • Make America Psycho Again (2015, remix album of American Beauty/American Psycho)
  • M A N I A (2018)
  • Lake Effect Kid [EP] (2018)
  • Greatest Hits: Believers Never Die - Volume Two (2019)
  • So Much (For) Stardust (2023)


Do tropes apply to them? Why yes, of course.

    open/close all folders 

    Song and Standalone Music Video Tropes 
Note: Due to the trope- and spoiler-filled nature of The Youngblood Chronicles music video series, it has its own folder.

  • Album Title Drop: Take This To Your Grave gets one in "The Patron Saint Of Liars And Fakes". Save Rock and Roll, American Beauty/American Psycho, and So Much (For) Stardust all get a drop in their Title Track.
  • Affectionate Parody: The third video for "Irresistible" is an affectionate homage and spiritual sequel to *NSYNC's "It's Gonna Be Me".
    • Parody Assistance: They even got Wayne Isham, the director of the original video, as well as Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick themselves to play along.
  • All Just a Dream: The video for "The Take Over, The Break's Over", "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race" and "Beat It".
  • All There in the Manual: Pete has annotated several songs on Genius and has corrected misunderstood/heard lyrics for fans asking about them on Twitter.
  • American Title: "American Made" from PAX AM Days and American Beauty/American Psycho.
  • And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Variation: "I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me".
  • Animated Music Video: "Carpal Tunnel Of Love", which stars Happy Tree Friends and features Happy Tree Friends versions of the band themselves.
  • Anti-Christmas Song: “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out”.
  • Anti-Love Song: Many, many of their songs:
    • "Bang the Doldrums" is a good example:
      This is a love song in my own way/Happily ever after, below the waist.
    • "Sugar, We're Goin Down":
    ''I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song".
    • "The Music or the Misery"
      I got your love letters, corrected the grammar and sent them back.
      It's true, romance is dead, I shot it in the chest and in the head.
    • "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," which tells the story of two people having sex just to get over people they broke up with.
    • "Hum Hallelujah"
      A teenage vow in a parking lot, till tonight do us part
    • "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" is another example.
    • “The Mighty Fall”:
    Your crooked love is just a pyramid scheme
    And I'm dizzy on dreams (and I'm dizzy on dreams)
    But if you ask me, two's a whole lot lonelier than one
    Baby, we should have left our love in the gutter where we found it (gutter where we found it)
    'Cause you think, you think, your only crime is that you got caught
  • Arc Words: There are a few on the Save Rock and Roll album. Specifically, "Do you want to feel beautiful?" and "Poison".
  • Arms Race: A metaphorical example in the song "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race." While they're actually talking about the scene they came out of (which around 2006 was gaining major traction in the mainstream, with bands that were good and bands that were... mostly forgettable and mainly there to ride the trend to the top), the metaphorical verses fit this trope perfectly: "I am an arms dealer/Fitting you with weapons in the form of words/Yeah, don't really care which side wins/Long as the room keeps singing, that's just the business I'm in, yeah."
  • Badass Boast: "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" could read as this, depending on interpretation.
    I'm in the de-details with the devil/So now the world can never get me on my level/I just got to get you out of the cage/I'm a young lover's rage/Gonna need a spark to ignite
    • Another one is in "Centuries".
      Some legends are told/some turn to dust or to gold/but you'll remember me/remember me for centuries
    • "She's My Winona"
      Hell or glory/I don't want anything in between.
  • Badass Longcoat: The woman in "Jet Pack Blues" has one.
    "She's in a long black coat tonight/Waiting for me in the downpour outside."
  • Bookends: In their album Infinity on High. The first track starts with the chatter of people entering an auditorium and the last track ends in applause.
  • Break-Up Song: It's more which ones aren't technically entirely break up songs. Or which ones aren't break up songs at all, but are written in a way that reads as one.
  • Broken Record: In "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet".
    Wish I didn't- I didn't- I didn't- I didn't- I didn't- I didn't- I didn't-
  • Call-Back: "Save Rock and Roll" samples "Until your breathing stops, forever" from "Chicago is so Two Years Ago". Its lyrics also mention "going down swingin'".
    • The entire last minute or so of "What a Catch, Donnie" is one big one. There's a whole medley of previous songs of theirs: "Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet," "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy," "Sugar, We're Goin Down," "Dance, Dance," "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race," "Thnks fr the Mmrs," and "Growing Up" are all in there.
    • The first music video for "Irresistible" is full of them, including references back to The Youngblood Chronicles, I Don't Care, and Bedussey.
    • "Bishop's Knife Trick" is one to "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs", where instead of monkeys directing the band it's Stump trying and failing to direct llamas.
    • The title track off of So Much (For) Stardust calls back to the first song on the album, "Love from the Other Side":
      You were the sunshine of a lifetime/What would you trade the pain for? I'm not sure
  • Celebrity Song: "Uma Thurman."
    • The original title of "Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued" was "My Name Is David Ruffin And These Are The Temptations," but was changed, obviously, so they wouldn't get sued.
  • Characterization Marches On: The llamas from "Young & Menace" went from "monster representation of a young girl's abusive parents" to semi-mascots for the band during their album cycle. They got names (Frosty and Royal Tea) and their own LLAMANIA EPnote . During the MANIA tour, they showed up on stage and in pre-recorded footage where they played [1] and heckled the band Statler and Waldorf style. They also showed up during Fall Out Boy's live TV performances.
    • During the video for Wilson (Expensive Mistakes), Frosty and Royal Tea are marketed as adorable llamas...then they suddenly revert back to their music video characterization and start trying to kill each other.
  • Cleanup Crew: The band show up as such after the ballerina disposes of the gang accosting her in the video for "American Beauty/American Psycho".
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: After noticing that their past albums tended to have predominantly red or blue color schemes, the band decided to make MANIA a purple album.
  • Concept Video: Pretty much always. The most notable examples of this include the "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me', an longform 80s style vampire turf war video and "The Youngblood Chronicles, in which all of the songs on "Save Rock and Roll" got videos that combine into one big surreal Quentin Tarantino lite horror film.
  • Cover Version: Several, most notably Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", The Police's "Roxanne," Danny Elfman's "What's This?" and Michael Jackson's "Beat It."
  • Dating What Daddy Hates: Exaggerated in the video for "Sugar, We're Goin Down" and its story of a girl who falls for a boy with antlers; her hunter father hates him to the point where he tries to kill him.
  • Death by Music Video: Happens in "Carpal Tunnel of Love". The band, in Happy Tree Friends character forms, enters the diner Cuddles and Giggles are in. When Lumpy, panicking, gets into Handy's tow truck and drives away, he ends up somehow getting the cable stuck into the diner's ceiling fan. This leads to a wall being ripped out of the diner, right into Fall Out Boy, killing the lot of them. They're last seen as a quartet of severed heads rolling along the street with the diner wall right behind them.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Throughout the music video for "Thnks fr the Mmrs", the chimpanzees act condescending towards Fall Out Boy, especially Pete in particular, who has been treated like the butt of all jokes by them and got called out for going above the top throughout his performance. When Pete notices one of the chimpanzees caressing his love interest (played by Kim Kardashian), he finally loses his temper. Pete then goes off in a tirade by throwing his microphone against the floor, accompanied by Patrick's microphone being broken, one of the cymbals from Andy's drumkit being thrown to the ground in anger, and finally throwing his bass guitar into the "B" of the initial band's lights. The rest of the bandmates all flee the scene in fear when they notice something off with Pete.
    • Also, let's not forget the part when Joe put his electric guitar into one of the speakers in anger after being treated horribly by the condescending chimpanzees.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: The narrators of "Grand Theft Autumn" and "A Little Less Sixteen Candles".
  • Downer Ending: For the video for "A Little Less Sixteen Candles". Pete's arrested, the cops turn out to be vampires, it's implied Patrick, Andy, and Joe all got turned (or only Patrick got turned but all three of them still got arrested), William Beckett gets away, the Dandies have turned more people (or just outright killed them), and god only knows exactly what happened to the vampire faction that was there when the Dandies showed up.
  • Emo Music: One of the most contentious topics you'll hear discussed about the band, as the page intro would tell you. Your understanding of emo likely informs whether or not you think emo was a footnote in FOB's story or a defining aspect. In the mid-00s, Fall Out Boy were seen by some as the poster children for "emo-pop", described as a style mixing the personal lyrics and to a varying extent the hardcore punk elements of emo with catchy pop punk. That being said, a lot of bands including Fall Out Boy were lumped into that categorization and mocked to the point where that categorization would be considered a smear rather than an accurate assessment of their genre. As mentioned in the note on top of the page, Fall Out Boy took influence from early emo acts such as Jawbreaker, The Get Up Kids and Braid (The title of "Grand Theft Autumn" is a direct reference to a Braid song of the same name), but the band started swerving from that path by the release of Infinity on High, even as soon as From Under The Cork Tree if you're feeling charitable. The early emo influence fell out in favor of general pop rock with a particular emphasis on the pop and experimentation in other genres by way of incorporating elements of hip-hop, electronic music, and others. Even with the early emo influences, Fall Out Boy never considered themselves an emo band and often rejected being lumped in with the other bands that got put into the category around the mid-00s, even calling the tendency out lyrically on Thrillernote  and the entirety of "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race".
  • Fake Shemp: The video for "Love from the Other Side" features someone in a raccoon costume playing guitar alongside Patrick, Pete and Andy. The evening after the video was released the band announced Joe would be taking a hiatus to focus on his health, effectively confirming that he wasn't in the video.
  • The "Fun" in "Funeral": Patrick tries to make the guests happy and make them sing at Pete's (apparent) funeral in "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race".
  • Fun with Acronyms: There are currently two songs with acronymic titles.
    • "w.a.m.s." stands for “waiter/actress/model/singer” as confirmed by Andy on twitter.
    • "G.I.N.A.S.F.S." actually stands for "Gay Is Not A Synonym For Shitty", but was censored to an abbreviation before its release as a bonus track for Infinity on High.
  • Gainax Ending: A few songs end with strange chant-like poems as a last verse. One of the most odd examples would be '20 Dollar Nose Bleed' which is an upbeat pop song otherwise.
  • Getting High on Their Own Supply: Referenced in "Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)":
    If we hadn't done this thing, I think I'd be a medicine man
    So I could get high on my own supply whenever I can
  • Hates Being Alone: "7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)" is partially about this. For example, the chorus is:
    I'm sitting out dances on the wall
    Trying to forget anything that isn't you
    I'm not going home alone
    'Cause I don't do too well on my own
    • And from "Jet Pack Blues":
    Did ever love her? Do you know?
    Or did you never want to be alone?
  • Hidden Depths: "You're Crashing, But You're No Wave" was written about Fred Hampton, Jr., a black nationalist activist arrested for having allegedly committed arson and whose father, the leader of the Black Panthers, was gunned down by police in his home without a proper trial. Mind you, this is only really hidden depths for those who weren't aware of Fall Out Boy's background in hardcore punk, where subjects like this tend to be addressed more often... only a lot more directly than Pete's usual approach to lyric writing. If you ever hear a Fall Out Boy song where Pete just starts growling out a verse, that's the hardcore showing. Heck, even Patrick can do unclean vocals when he wants to. And then there's the PAX AM Days EP...
    • Another example of the trope that makes more sense if you're aware of the band's background: the song "20 Dollar Nose Bleed" is about a veteran of the Iraq War who became addicted to drugs. The second verse is about George W. Bush, and it isn't... praising, to say the least.
    It feels like fourteen carats but no clarity
    When I looked at the man who would be king, the man who would be king
    Goes to the desert, the same war his dad rehearsed
    Came back with flags and coffins and said, "We won, oh, we won."
  • Incredibly Long Note: Patrick has "range like no motherfucker knows" and it shines through every other song. The Mighty Fall may be one of the most amazing range showing songs.
    • "The Take Over, The Break's Over" has a very impressive long note/a very impressive long "fair".
    • Shown in spades after the release of "Centuries," with one of the most impressive range displays thus far.
  • Incompatible Orientation: "Sugar, We're Goin Down" is said by some to have originally been about this, as the lyrics in the liner notes say "Wishing to be the friction in his jeans" instead of "in your jeans"; the song also includes references to "watching [a couple making love] from the closet" and "sleeping for the wrong team."
  • Intercourse with You: "Death Valley", "Uma Thurman", "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" and referenced in plenty of their other songs.
  • It's All About Me: Seen in the chorus of "I Don't Care".
    I don't care what you think as long as it's about me
  • Latex Perfection: The end of "I Don't Care" features this as a twist ending element: a random girl with Tyga removes her mask to reveal Pete. Andy removes his mask to reveal Mark Hoppus (who then grows to his regular height). Patrick removes his mask to reveal Pharrell Williams. Joe removes his mask (with less than convincing CGI) to reveal Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship. A beat up, unconscious Pete gets his mask removed to reveal an equally beat up and unconscious Spencer Pratt from The Hills. Top cap it all off, Gilby Clarke removes his mask to reveal...Sarah Palin? You betcha!
  • List Song: "We Didn't Start the Fire"—neither a parody nor a straight cover of the Billy Joel original, but a remake focusing on events from 1989-2023.
  • Location Song: "Lake Effect Kid" and "City in a Garden" are about their hometown Chicago.
  • Lonely Together: "Alone Together". Pete mentioned the main theme being how "Music never leaves you alone, and punk rock will always be there when nothing else will", which considering the many friendships made due to their fans connecting with each other through their music and for those who say the band's music helped them through hard times, is especially fitting.
  • Love Is Like Religion:
    • "Uma Thurman" is a heavily sexual song incorporating much religious imagery, the singer promising to "move mountains", "work a miracle", and "keep you like an oath" and expressing a desire to "confess" to his beloved.
      The blood, the blood, the blood of the lamb
      Is worth two lions but here I am
    • "Church":
      If you were church, I'd get on my knees
      Confess my love, I'd know where to be
      My sanctuary, you're holy to me
      If you were church, I'd get on my knees
  • Lyrical Cold Open: "Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy" has one. "I'm Like a Lawyer...", too.
  • Lyrical Dissonance:
    • "7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)," which is about Wentz's suicide attempt, is written to happy, fun music. It's quite misleading. Most of the lyrics on Infinity On High gets this treatment too.
    • "Hum Hallelujah" is also about Wentz's suicide attempt, and similarly upbeat.
    • Pete stated that "I Don't Care" was "Like the chorus says, 'I don't care what you think as long as it's about me.' It's that pop culture thing again, where people don't care about anything but the superficial, and I think there's something so tragic about that. I also thought there was something so ironically anthemic about the chorus, where it's not something you want to sing along to, because it's vacuous and empty. So I wanted something really anthemic underneath it, like something you'd hear at sports games or whatever, because I wanted people to hear it and be confronted with how empty that is. I didn't want anything to be superficial on this record unless the point was to point out superficiality."
    • "So Good Right Now" is an upbeat, Motown-style number with lyrics talking about the singer desperately cutting themselves down to try and make a doomed relationship last longer. The first lyrics are even "I've got this doom and gloom in my mind".
    • "What a Time To Be Alive" sounds very lively despite the lyrics talking about the trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the stark line "seems the vulture's getting too full to fly".
  • Lyrics/Video Mismatch: Constantly appearing in their music videos, ever since the Take This To Your Grave days. And it's only gotten more ridiculous from there.
    • If anyone is willing to explain what "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'" has to do with vampire hunting, please enlighten us. At the very least, it is shown that the vampires use "kiss" as a Deadly Euphemism for drinking human blood, meaning that the line "What are you waiting for? Kiss her, kiss her!" actually is connected.
    • If anyone can see the connection between the lyrics of "Sugar, We're Going Down" and human-deer hybrids, that would seriously en-deer them to us. (The band originally kept getting video concepts that made just as much sense but were woefully generic, including one involving a pool party, so when the video treatment with good ol' Deer Boy came along, they leapt at it.)
    • Let's not even get started with their Young Blood Chronicles series of music videos. Someone should give them a hand for keeping up with this trope for so long.
    • When you make a cheesy basketball themed music video for a song about an unhealthy relationship, then make another video for it focusing on pug doggy shenanigans, then team up with Demi Lovato to kinda remake an *NSYNC music video? it's safe to say your band finds this trope Irresistible.
  • Mythology Gag: Fall Out Boy's "What a Catch, Donnie" has lines from several of their songs ("Grand Theft Autumn", "Sugar, We're Goin' Down", "Dance, Dance", plus others) sung in the background during the third stanza, by their friends in other bands from their label.
  • Mid-Vid Skit: "I Don't Care" features a still picture of a cat for a few seconds in the middle of the video. The clip falls silent while the picture is on the screen. The band purposefully had these put in due to censor additional Product Placement shots they didn't approve of.
  • Miniscule Rocking: PAX AM Days. Fitting a straightforward punk EP, none of the songs are over two minutes.
  • Non-Appearing Title: Regarding their pre-hiatus discography, it would be easier to list their songs that don't do this. As a general rule, the longer the title, the less likely it is to appear in the song.
    • Some notable exceptions: "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race", "Dance, Dance", "Sugar, We're Goin Down", "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs", "Dead On Arrival", "I Don't Care", "America's Suitehearts", "Hum Hallelujah", "Calm Before the Storm", "Saturday", "The Music or the Misery", "Honorable Mention", and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose". The last half of "Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy" appears, but not the first half. There are a few others, but that's most of the exceptions. It's probably no coincidence that this looks like a list of their most popular songs.
    • The band completely averted this post-hiatus until the release of M A N I A. Every song they released included the title in the lyrics, even the overly long "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)."
    • The trope is once again implemented in M A N I A with "Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea"; "Bishop's Knife Trick"; and "Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)", in which the subtitle appears but not the title itself.
    • In So Much (For) Stardust, this applies to four of the thirteen tracks: "Heaven, Iowa", "I Am My Own Muse", "Baby Annihilation", and "The Kintsugi Kid (Ten years)" - though the latter does contain the subtitle in the chorus.
  • No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-universe. The theme of "I Don't Care" ("I don't care what you think, as long as it's about me").
  • Nervous Wreck: "I'm a nervous wreck" stated in "West Coast Smoker," but thoroughly implied in From Under The Cork Tree... and pretty much all the albums pre-hiatus.
  • Of Corpse He's Alive: The entire premise of the video for "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet". Brendon and Spencer of Panic! at the Disco discover Pete's body and decide to take him out for a day of fun and then dump him back on the beach where they found him... minus Pete's effects.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The title of the first track on From Under The Cork Tree is a parody of this. (Though it is rumored that their lawyers actually did make them change the name of the song, from "My Name is David Ruffin...and These are The Temptations.")
  • The Phoenix: "The Phoenix", which was the second song they released after returning from their hiatus.
  • Pop Punk: Fall Out Boy are the Trope Codifiers for modern day Pop Punk (although a case could feasibly be made for Paramore). Unlike bands that came before them like Sum 41 and blink-182, they avoided puerile lyrics. They didn't shy away from goofball antics in their music videos, but the most immature of these were kept out, instead showing up in tour update videos and an infamous Jackass style DVD called Release the Bats. This helped Fall Out Boy from getting pigeonholed, compared to blink-182 who had to deal with backlash and general confusion when they tried transitioning to more serious material, and also influenced acts like All Time Low to take a similar approach. They also adopted more of a sense of urgency, emo, and slight hardcore punk influence to their music. They also brought in a myriad of outside genre influences (most notably on Folie A Deux) and weren't afraid to acknowledge pop punk has pop in it. They also introduced a postmodern, Deadpan Snarker attitude to the lyrics and song titles, which heavily inspired a few bands afterward (most notably Panic! at the Disco). Their debut album Take This To Your Grave is considered one of the greatest and influential genre albums.
  • Pun-Based Title: Quite a few early songs, though "Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends" stands out.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: It being music, there's plenty. One example:
    This ain't a scene, it's a God! Damn! Arms! Race!
  • Pungeon Master: Even a brief glance at their lyrics shows that Pete Wentz loves him some puns. A couple of best examples:
    "I'm just a painter and I'm drawing a blank"
    "the man hangs, the jury doesn't"
    "I couldn't bring myself to call / Except to call it quits"
  • Rearrange the Song: "Irresistible" as originally released - both as a single and on American Beauty/American Psycho - was a solo Fall Out Boy performance. The song was later re-released with guest vocals from Demi Lovato.
  • Recycled Lyrics: "I'll check in tomorrow/if I don't wake up dead" appears in both "Alone Together" and "Rat A Tat" from Save Rock and Roll. Justified in that the latter is referencing the former.
    • Other instances of this trope being used as a Call-Back are "What a Catch, Donnie" on Folie a Deuxnote  and "Save Rock and Roll" from the album of the same namenote .
  • Rock Me, Amadeus!: "The Phoenix" samples Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7.
  • Sampling: The band does it quite a bit.
  • Self-Deprecation: "Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued" begins with the line "Brothers and sisters, put this record down" and continues in a similar vein. Fitting, considering it's the very first song on their sophomore album.
  • Singer Name Drop:
    • One of Fall Out Boy's songs is called "I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me". The title is never actually sung though.
    • While Jay-Z doesn't drop his own name in the intro or outro for "Thriller", he does go YO! F-O-B! right before the song segues into "The Take Over, The Break's Over."
    • Pete Wentz is name-dropped in "Saturday" (for which the majority of the lyrics were written by Stump).
    • "Rat A Tat", which features Courtney Love, begins with the lyric "It's Courtney, bitch!"
  • Slow-Loading Internet Image: In the music video for "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race", one of the band members, Pete Wentz, is prompted by a photographer to take his pants off and take a picture with his cell phonenote . Scene cuts to teenage girls waiting for the picture to load slowly downward, before cutting away to said girls becoming outraged at his exposure.
  • Studio Chatter: At the end of "Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over", Patrick can be heard trying to yell the chorus and doing badly. The track ends with him and Pete laughing.
  • Take That!: The ending of the "Uma Thurman" video, where Pete asks "Sarah" to do one last thing... to run over a truck labeled with Article 1, Section 36.03, Alabama's "Sanctity of Marriage Act" that banned same sex marriage in the state.
  • Token Heroic Orc: Pete is a vampire in the "A Little Less Sixteen Candles" video, but he helps the rest of the band fight the other vampires anyway.
  • Two out of Three Ain't Bad: This phrase is used in the song I'm Like A Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me and You):
  • Unexpected Character: Fall Out Boy has featured a surprising amount of rappers, for a punk band, including Jay-Z, Big Sean, Lil Wayne, and even 2Chainz.
    • A remix for "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race" that was originally intended to be on Infinity on High featured Kanye West, but a remix of THAT remix also featured Paul Wall (who was their tourmate alongside +44 on the Honda Civic Tour), Skinhead Rob (of punk-rap group The Transplants, affiliated with blink-182 and +44), Travis McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes), Lil' Wayne (who'd later guest on Folie a Deux), Lupe Fiasco (who'd later have Patrick produce and do backing vocals for Little Weapon off his album The Cool and did guest vocals for the radio version of This City off of Patrick's solo album, Soul Punk) and Tyga (Travis McCoy's cousin, originally signed to Decaydance's little known rap imprint "Batsquad" alongside Gym Class Heroes for his first album No Introduction).
    • Babyface produced "Thnks fr th Mmrs" and "I'm Like a Lawyer..." off of Infinity on High, and Pharrell produced "w.a.m.s." off of Folie a Deux. Fall Out Boy parodied the scene's reaction to news of Babyface being on the album with a comedy video where the band becomes the R&B group Fall Out Boyz.
  • Word Salad Lyrics: A lot of Folie a Deux. Most of it has meaning assigned to it, but a lot of it sounds like complete nonsense without explanation. An example from "Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet":
    Tempest in a teacup
    Get unique
    Peroxide princess shine like shark teeth
    It's a sign (It's a sign)
    It's a sign (It's a sign)
    It's a sign - what if you peaked early?
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
    • The video for the version of "Irresistible" with Demi Lovato serves as a Whole Plot Reference and a pseudo-sequel to *NSYNC's video for "It's Gonna Be Me". The concept of the video not only allowed them to commentate on their status as "accepted underdogs" in the mid-2010s pop scene and give a respectful shout-out to one of the biggest boy bands ever, but also let them goof off with long time friend Demi Lovato and two-fifths of *NSYNC.
    • The video for "Last of the Real Ones" is a Whole Plot Reference to Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" with Pete in the role of Kanye and the llamas as Rita G. It's also a Shot-for-Shot Remake (with some padding added to fill the video run timenote ). The single biggest difference beyond the run time padding is that "Last of the Real Ones" has worse lighting.

    Band Tropes 
  • Cassandra Truth: During the filming of the video for "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark", 2Chainz posted a picture of him with Pete mentioning working on something with Fall Out Boy. Thing is, while Fall Out Boy was active as a band then, they had been working in secret and hadn't made an official comeback announcement yet. Despite Fall Out Boy being a band that has a long history of being surprisingly chummy with rappers note , the band has claimed that somehow no FOB fan believed that 2Chainz was telling the truth about the collaboration. This might have been less due to fans being collectively ignorant about Fall Out Boy's rap crossover background and more due to fans being fed up with the countless comeback rumors floating around during the band's hiatus. With various gossip websites and jokers like Beau Bokan setting off the fandom BS detector, the fans were bound to get it wrong at some point when someone actually told the truth. Patrick actually addressed this in a tweet: "One of these days there may actually be news and you won't be able to hear it over all the rumors."
  • Guyliner: One of the many reasons Pete got attention (both positive and negative) back in the day. He's long since stopped, but you'll still have people who either hate Fall Out Boy or haven't been paying attention to Fall Out Boy bringing it up as if it were still 2006. Heck, there are even some fans who REALLY want it back.
    • Patrick wore eyeliner once or twice and Pete also had some fairly detailed face makeup going on during Folie a Deux touring.
    • Brought back in their "Drunk History of Fall Out Boy" video, where Pete's eyeliner was apparently an important part of the band's history, according to Brendon of Panic! at the Disco. Since they're acting out Brendon's description, Pete puts it back on.
  • Lead Bassist: Pete exemplified being a Type C pre-hiatus (to the point where interviewers sometimes thought he was the singer), but post-hiatus, Patrick, Andy, and Joe get a fairer share of attention (very much on purpose).
  • Lead Drummer: Andy Hurley is known for his technical ability (being by far the most capable musician in the band), as well as for his widely-respected status in the hardcore and powerviolence scenes due to his status as a current and founding member of Racetraitor, his membership in Sect, and the various other bands he has worked with. He was also respected for his work in Enabler before he left (and before they disappeared from the scene).
  • Manly Tears:
    • Drummer Andrew Hurley admitted in Rolling Stone to shedding some before what he wondered could be their final concert - the October 4, 2009 show at Madison Square Garden.
    • Patrick would often shed these during and after singing "What a Catch, Donnie" on the Save Rock & Roll Arena Tour.
  • Most Writers Are Male: Some of Wentz's lyrics are uncomfortably unsporting and spiteful regarding ex-girlfriends, but aren't necessarily aimed at women in general. This is toned down on later albums, though. Fan consensus assumes that was due to his getting married to Ashlee Simpson, his chilling out as a result, and it generally not being acceptable for a newlywed to publicly kvetch about exes anymore. His divorce hasn't changed this: only one of the songs on Save Rock and Roll is about the divorce and he's stated as writing it from a more adult perspective rather than simply lashing out.
  • Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Fall Out Boy is known for making various references to pop culture in their song titles and interviews, but due to the constant influx of younger fans coming into the fandom over the course of a decade, some of them are bound to either not get the reference or assume that when people are making reference to the original media that it's actually a reference to the band, mixed in with a little Older Than They Think.
    • Back when "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" was getting major radio traction, more pedantic people were quick to note that any references made to being "#1 with a bullet" were more likely a reference to the Billboard charts than the song.
    • The title for "Coffee's For Closers" is a reference to Glengarry Glen Ross. When confronted with people on Twitter who thought that one of his tweets was a reference to the song and not to the play/film, Mark Hoppus proceeded to keep a cool head...and make another Glengarry Glen Ross reference.
    • Their This is Spın̈al Tap-themed live performance on Conan got some fans spooked when Pete got "stuck" in one of the pods... Not even Harry Shearer showing up seemed to tip people off that it was staged. Thankfully, Team Coco provided a link to the exact scene in Spinal Tap that FOB was referencing in their performance for the benefit of those who didn't get the reference and also didn't get the show where they're at.
    • Thankfully averted whenever the band makes references to John Hughes movies. Also averted when fans pointed out the resemblance of FOB's costumes in the "Irresistible" video to the costumes in White Men Can't Jump.
  • Pop-Star Composer: Patrick Stump served as composer for Merry Little Batman.
  • Rearrange the Song: Make America Psycho Again remixes all of the the songs from American Beauty/American Psycho.
  • Sell-Out:
    • They've been having this thrown at them since From Under The Cork Treenote , though the accusations really started to pick up around Infinity on Highnote . Fall Out Boy's tendency for Genre Roulette and adapting to the pop music landscape over the years leads to the brunt of the accusations, mostly from fans of their first two albums, which were straightforward pop punk albums. Post-hiatus specific accusations of this come from experimenting with orchestration and synths, which some feel is at the expense of their main instrumentation, similar to prior complaints about the use of drum machines on Folie a Deux.
  • Supporting Leader: Pete. Although Patrick is the lead singer, Pete gets the most credit for being the songwriter and face of the band and is even sometimes miscredited as the singer. They're getting on a more equal level after the hiatus, however.

     The Youngblood Chronicles Tropes 
  • Abandoned Hospital: Double Subverted in "Where Did the Party Go", which takes place in an abandoned hospital that doesn't actually seem to be creepy at all. Except the boys are running from Patrick, who is stalking the halls. Also, Patrick himself sees the hospital as a straight version of this trope.
  • All There in the Manual: That... thing that was in the briefcase at the end of "Save Rock and Roll"? According to Pete's instagram, that thing's name is Xibalba.
    • If you've seen the videos and you want anything resembling answers, you're probably gonna want to see Patrick and Pete's VH1 commentary and this blog post by Pete
  • Anti-Climax: All of "The Mighty Fall" video qualifies - Big Sean gets killed before really doing anything, everyone spent most of the video running from crazy children, and Patrick's golden-eyed-devil thing is only briefly toyed with (though that was explored more in later installments).
  • An Arm and a Leg: In "The Phoenix" video, Patrick loses his hand. If only they could have left it at limb loss...
  • Anyone Can Die: Patrick, Pete, Joe, Andy, Big Sean, the little kid that delivered Patrick's hand to Pete, and even some of Fall Out Boy's kidnapped fans have been killed. However, just because anyone can die doesn't mean they stay dead.
  • Black Dude Dies First: On the heroes' side - Big Sean, we hardly knew ye.
  • Black Eyes of Evil: Foxes in the "Just One Yesterday" video.
  • Blood from the Mouth: At the end of the "Miss Missing You" video, Patrick starts bleeding heavily from his mouth just before he dies.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Patrick, whenever a certain sound is played.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: In "The Phoenix" music video, poor Patrick gets this treatment. This is followed by the "Young Volcanoes" and "Alone Together" videos, in which everyone else joins in.
    • "Miss Missing You" had a non-band example of this happening In the background of Pete and Patrick's chase, some poor guy on a dog leash and chain gets pulled at and yelled by a much angrier and bigger man.
  • Darker and Edgier: Compared to their previous videos. The second video, for "The Phoenix", features each member of the band being kidnapped by strange masked women and Patrick getting tortured with his hand cut off and sent to Pete's door in a plastic bag. Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Not for the squeamish. "Young Volcanoes" takes this even further. There is a warning on the video. Probably because of the topless woman wearing a pig mask. And the forced drug use. And the forced cannibalism. And then, even MORE with "Alone Together." Where all four guys are captured and tortured, Pete kills one of the girls, and Patrick gets turned evil. And the dial might as well broke off when "Where Did the Party Go" came out what with Patrick killing Joe. By the end, the whole band dies and just when you think it's gonna get lighter and softer for a chance at Earn Your Happy Ending, that THING in the briefcase comes to try and slaughter FOB's old and new fans, until FOB lays the smackdown on him, staining Elton John's nice white suit in the process.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The video for "Miss Missing You". According to Pete and Patrick's VH1 commentary, it was deliberately that way to make the trailer park occupants seem less narmy and also due to a lack of natural light in later scenes.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Let's face it, most people weren't expecting the briefcase to contain a being that's either a Humanoid Abomination or just pure evil to appear, kill a bunch of people and then get killed (or not?) by Fall Out Boy. There was no foreshadowing for this because, according to the VH1 commentary, they only just decided to set up the idea of there being a darker group besides Courtney Love's and a sinister being inside the briefcase with the final video. The situation is also glaring in that whatever the boys are seeing in the briefcase during "The Phoenix" video is definitely not what was in the briefcase in "Save Rock and Roll".
  • Downer Ending: One set of downer endings after another. To go through in order: "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" features FOB about to be lit on fire while bound and blindfolded in the back of a van, in "The Phoenix" all four of the guys are captured and Patrick's hand is cut off, "Young Volcanoes" isn't too bad, but it shows that they were eating Patrick's organs, in "Alone Together" the guys are tortured then shoved in the aforementioned van, "The Mighty Fall" isn't too bad either, but Big Sean is dead, in "Just One Yesterday" Patrick is brainwashed and crazy and trying to kill the rest of the band, in "Where Did the Party Go," Patrick kills Joe, in "Death Valley," Patrick is recaptured by the girls, in "Rat a Tat," Patrick is rebrainwashed and chasing down Pete while Andy gets his throat slit, in "Miss Missing You," Patrick and Pete kill each other in their fight, and "Save Rock and Roll" could be one depending on whether or not you think they survived their fight with Xibalba.
  • Dying as Yourself: So thoroughly averted that Patrick stays Brainwashed and Crazy even in the afterlife. It takes being brought to heaven to snap him out of it.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: The cloaked, masked figures wanted that thing in the briefcase to spread chaos and discord, only to immediately change their minds after the first thing it did after being summoned was to decapitate one of them.
  • Eye Colour Change: In the "Alone Together" video, Patrick's eyes are turned to a golden yellow through mysterious methods. It happens to him again throughout later videos.
    • Foxes does this as well, though hers turn completely black.
  • Forced to Watch: Very subtly in "Young Volcanoes". Patrick is the only one not wearing a blindfold while the women feed them all Patrick's organs.
    • Also part of Patrick's brainwashing in "Rat a Tat." The women set him up in front of a projector which displays a bunch of images he can't seem to look away from.
  • For the Evulz: The main motivation for the cloaked and masked group in "Save Rock and Roll" to use the briefcase to summon a creature that just so happens to ALSO do something for the evulz. That thing is indiscriminate slaughter.
  • Gainax Ending: Just what was that THING in the briefcase? Did Fall Out Boy win? Did that thing win? Was that a Every Dies Ending? Bolivian Army Ending?
  • Hellevator: In "Death Valley", the elevator can go to both Heaven and Hell... but this is the Youngblood Chronicles, do you honestly think Heaven is an option? It is.
  • Hell Is That Noise / Brown Note: In-Universe in "The Mighty Fall" video. Patrick has a case of this when the little kid who helped kidnap him starts chasing him with an old-school boombox, implying that Patrick knows what it's for. The kid turns it on, which plays something the audience doesn't hear but Patrick does and he turns evil as a result before Big Sean comes in, snaps the kid's neck and turns the boombox off, turning Patrick back to normal and leaving him confused. The noise shows up again and has the same effect in the "Just One Yesterday" video. In the commentary for the "Miss Missing You" video, the evil Patrick hears a girl playing with radio signals and tries to attack until Pete stops him. In the VH1 commentary, Patrick notes the "evil" version of his had been conditioned to hate music and therefore treats ANY music as a Brown Note.
  • A Hell of a Time: Donuts with sprinkles, hot women, and devil!Tommy Lee.
  • Hook Hand: Patrick, after his left hand is chopped off for being handcuffed to the MacGuffin.
  • Hope Spot: In the "Death Valley" video. It might end with Patrick getting taken away by the female goons and Joe is still dead, but more importantly, Pete and Andy now know just who the hell they're up against, and they have weapons.
    • In "Just One Yesterday." The band finally gets back together (and the reunion is pretty adorable too) and are heading to the hospital. At least, until Foxes turns once they get to the hospital...
    • In "Save Rock and Roll", the band is saving the day and everyone else with The Power of Rock until that thing in the briefcase is summoned...
  • I'm a Humanitarian: In the "Young Volcanoes" video, the band (under the influence of drugs), eats human organs. PATRICK'S organs.
  • Instrument of Murder: Granted to Pete and Andy by a rebel member of Courtney Love's gang (a bass neck shiv and a snare drum crossbow, respectively) in the "Death Valley" video and to the whole band by God!Elton John in Save Rock and Roll, merely regular instruments with the ability to channel heavenly laser powers.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Xibalba, which just so happened to be summoned from the briefcase. Looks somewhere between a plague doctor and death itself. A picture of it that Pete posted on Instagram hinted at it appearing again on Fall Out Boy's co-headlining Monumentour with Paramore, so not even REALITY is safe from it!
  • Kill the Ones You Love: In "Miss Missing You", Pete kills a Brainwashed and Crazy Patrick. Not that it does him any good..
  • Ki Manipulation: In the "Save Rock and Roll" video, the band channels it in their guitars to defeat Courtney Love's gang and grant them all a Heel–Face Turn. When they confront Xibalba, one of the last things seen before the cut to Elton John getting drenched in blood is Pete throwing a strong energy wave right at it.
  • Made of Evil: Hinted at in the VH1 commentary for Xibalba, the thing in the briefcase.
  • The Man Behind the Man: According to Pete and Patrick's VH1 commentary, those masked, cloaked people that do that creepy ceremony with the briefcase in "Save Rock and Roll" aren't part of Courtney Love's gang. Courtney apparently had anti-creative ideas drilled into her head when she was younger and is leading a group of Well Intentioned Extremists convinced that the boys are bad news. These cloaked figures just want what's in that suitcase For the Evulz and might have been manipulating Love's group for that exact purpose.
  • Mythology Gag: In the video for "My Songs...", 2Chainz burns some drums, drumsticks, one of Pete's basses, a mic stand, the From Under the Cork Tree album, a Black Clouds and Underdogs tour t-shirt, the Take This To Your Grave vinyl, some old TTTYG-era FOB merch, the ***: Live In Phoenix CD/DVD, the Evening Out With Your Girlfriend EP, and issues of Fall Out Toy Works. This wasn't intended as a Take That! to any of those things (except for EOWTG, which Patrick acknowledged that he "wanted it burned" in the VH1 commentary), they just burned stuff there was plenty of copies of and/or could be easily replaced.
    • The opening narration to "Miss Missing You" is actually reversed text on the back cover of Save Rock and Roll.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Implied in the music video for "Thnks fr th Mmrs", where Pete throws his bass into the "B" of the "FOB" lights as it falls, leaving "FO". This was probably done as a way of telling the chimpanzees to leave him alone without saying it.
    • Featured near the beginning of "Save Rock and Roll", along with Suddenly Shouting.
    I cried tears you'll never see
    And leave me be
  • Opening Scroll: "Save Rock and Roll" has one.
  • Rape as Drama: The boys are repeatedly kidnapped and/or sexually assaulted by gorgeous women. Double Standard Rape: Female on Male absolutely does not apply, and it's treated as appropriately traumatizing.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Xibalba, or as it could more appropriately be called, sealed evil in a briefcase.
  • Stairway to Heaven: Nearly this for Joe... then one of the kids that got offed in "Alone Together" video switches the direction the elevator is going in...
    • It shows up again after Patrick dies, but Elton John as God bails the whole band out.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: Patrick in "The Phoenix".
  • Summoning Ritual: What the cloaked, masked group in "Save Rock and Roll" does with the briefcase, complete with evil sacrament and bloodletting.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: When Patrick's eyes are this color, he hallucinates zombies. And then murders his bandmates.
  • Surreal Music Video: An 11 part series, featuring such as Pete Wentz vomiting up a snake, forced drug usage and consumption of organs while people in pig mask dance around the band, little girls lobbing produce at Joe in a straitjacket for no apparent reason, the contrast between Big Sean's verse in The Mighty Fall and the way he gets KILLED when he's singing it and MORE.
  • Tears of Remorse: Once Patrick snaps out of a Brainwashed and Crazy episode at the end of "Where Did The Party Go" and realizes that he killed Joe, he breaks down in tears while Pete and Andy look on in shock.
  • Thing-O-Meter: The Evil-Meter in "Alone Together".
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Courtney and her gang, according to Pete and Patrick's VH1 commentary.

 
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Fall Out Boy - "Dance, Dance"

Fall Out Boy's music video for "Dance, Dance" shows the band performing the song at a homecoming dance while the members simultaneously acts as stereotypical nerdy attendants at the event.

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5 (3 votes)

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