From Under the Cork Tree || released: may 2005
fav tracks: 16 candles, get busy living or get busy dying

i really got to know this album during the pandemic. i've yet to watch the music videos because FOB videos have generally been...kind of underwhelming for me but i can't call myself a real fan if i dont, especially when comes to the earlier albums!!
i cannot describe the feelings this album makes me feel. i have a tattoo of the keyhole from XO on my chest. i themed a dabihawks fic around get busy living. shit is inescapable. also the fanart of this era is insane.

i think it illustrates the self-hatred you feel towards yourself as a teenager really well. the lack of self-confidence, the awkwardness, and knowing that patrick is also neurodivergent really ties it all together.

Infinity on High || released: february 2007
fav tracks: i've got all this ringing in my ears, bang the doldrums, hum hallelujah

ah yes. the petekey album. another pandemic album for me. this era was undoubtedly where pete's myspace/livejournal poetry popped off...one day im gonna go through the archives and read em. i wish i had more to say but unfortunately there's not much depth to my relationship with it other than, "i like it!"

i think there's a lot of little musical easter eggs that patrick put in it, but i'm in no way qualified to point them out. maybe someone else should write about this album...someone with more of a relationship to it than i...

fun fact: the sheep's name is franklin, didja know that?

Folie a Deux
released: december 2008
fav tracks: pavlove, 27, wams, cooperstown, disloyal order

this is my favorite album as a whole work...i think i identify with it the most, as its the crunchiness of old fall out boy on the precipice of change!!! it illustrates the emotional dysregulation i've experienced for most of my life. when i was first getting into it, i put it in the playlist i'd put loud background music in, songs i would listen to when i needed to drown out my thoughts with something else. next thing i know, i'd learned all the lyrics without even realizing it. i listened to it a lot while i was lonely during the pandemic (thank u coffee's for closers), and then some more during my struggles through senior capstone. there are so many songs in it that sound so grand, but the lyrics are so sad.

i discovered pavlove and lullaby way after i'd already decided that this album is my favorite, but pavlove is now probably my favorite song from it :')

fun fact: pete wrote lullaby for his kids. then he had patrick sing it. (melts)

Save Rock and Roll
released: april 2013
fav tracks: miss missing you, just one yesterday

the youngbloods album!! i have a lot of thoughts about it honestly. the youngblood chronicles is genuinely so edgey in the cheesiest and campiest way possible; i appreciate it exactly for those reasons. its unapologetically cringe! it's bad! anyone who thinks more 2 seconds can see what poor taste all the villains being young hot women who are compared to nazis (along with the implications that theyre conspiring with hip hop artists) hellbent on destroying rock n roll .... but apparently not pete ;-; i do consider the chronicles as different from the album itself though.

proclaiming yourself as the savior of rock n roll is egotistical, but considering the fact that its the first album following the 5 year hiatus, id always interpreted it as a metaphor for the band saving themselves (e.g rock n roll) by finding each other again. the 1st track is the phoenix--an intense song about about returning after you were thought long dead; then there's where did the party go, alone together, and just one yesterday--songs about nostalgia, missing something that once was, and trying to get back to it. finally, there's miss missing you; at first glance its a breakup song, but the more i listen to it, the more i believe its about the band. it was something patrick wrote while they were split up, and instead of finishing it on his own, it was something he held onto and waited to do with the band. also idk how true this is--but i remember reading something where pete said he'd call up patrick when he was sad and have him sing to him. "i will sing to you everyday if itll take away the pain" ??????? im dead bro.

American Beauty /
American Psycho
released: january 2015
fav tracks: fourth of july,
twin skeletons, novocaine

this is the first album i bought and own from the boys, so its extra sentimental :^) i think this album really introduced me to everything music can make you feel. my middle school soul transcended bc of it.

4th of july is my favorite of all fall out boy songs, and it means a lot to me. "may the bridges i have burned light my way back home" is tattooed on my arm, a reminder that no matter who comes in and out of my life, i will always find my way back home. at first, i interpreted 'home' as myself, that through all the hardship, i'm still there at the end of the day to hold myself. but when i got the tattoo, i had some close friends pick the font, and they all agreed on the one i ended up going with. when i decided to go with their choice, i realized that home was more than just myself; people will leave me behind, and i'll leave them behind, but those fallouts will lead me to the ones who care enough to stay.

fun fact: i was at the concert where they played favorite record for the first time live as an 8 ball, and patrick made a dad joke about it.

MANIA || released: january 2018
fav tracks: church, the last of the real ones, bishop's knife trick

this album got a lot of hate when it came out, and probably still does, but god, i love it. i think at the time it was the most cohesive album of the posthiatus albums.

it captures what it's like to worship someone; the urge to compare them to something celestial or angelic, the feeling of being unable to measure up to how heavenly they are. aka the sapphic dilemma, if me obsessing over the album as a college freshman is anything to go by

So Much for Stardust
released: march 2023
fav tracks: heaven iowa,
flu game, stardust
love from the other side

this album came out my senior year of college, in the middle of a falling out i had with someone i had considered my brother. i thought we were close, that i was important enough for him to recognize that there were things he was doing that had deeply hurt me and others, but in the end it didn't matter. his ego was more important to him than keeping people he claimed to care about, and it was more important than the fact that he'd done some awful, manipulative things to hurt people. i'd been giving him the benefit of the doubt the whole time, but i think a lot more of his behavior was orchestrated, intentional, and malicious than i had originally wanted to believe. funnily enough, he'd essentially bullied me for listening to fall out boy, constantly insinuating that i was whiter for liking rock music while he appropriated and fetishized east asian culture right in front of me. fuck him. i have nothing to prove. my healing was wrapped up in this album, along with the close poc friends i had that loved fall out boy just as much as i did.

this album held me the whole time i dissociated and fell apart. i listened to it constantly while i was work. i remember one day where i'd listened to the album 3 times in a row. so much for stardust, indeed.