i only want sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with me

Fall Out Boy
"Dance, Dance" video
(Island Def Jam)

I don't have cable, but if the internet was ever good for something, then it's becoming a hype machine for oversaturated products. Enter Fall Out Boy, a band whose quick rise to stardom, after spending years as an opening band, is something of mythic proportions. The clip for their new single "Dance, Dance" made me smile and cringe within the same context.

The first time I watched the video, I was entertained. It was shot well and poorly acted, as all music videos should be (are you reading, Andre 3000?). Later that evening, I played the video for my girlfriend and my cousin, both of whom showed very little interest in it, though they are Fall Out Boy fans. I paid a little more attention to the clip and here's my eight cents on it:

1. The acting is terrible, but more than anything, the whole high school thing is pretty stupid. Pete Wentz, Fall Out Boy's bassist and public relations mouthpiece, looks old. The dude is in his mid-20's but he looks like he's 30 in the video.

2. While the Revenge Of The Nerds homage was charming the first time around, it really pissed me off the second. This whole Napoleon Dynamite Geek Chic shit has gotta go. It's redundant as hell. You know what's cool? Videos where humans fight animals. This big budget video should have been Fall Out Boy playing in the Ozarks and then getting attacked by a bear. I would pay good money to see Pete try to swing his bass at a bear, then getting mauled like a mufucka.

3. Considering some of the lyrical content of "Dance, Dance," I don't think high school was an appropriate setting. With lines like "I only want sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with me" and "Why don't you show me that little bit of spine you've been saving for his mattress," the high school thing should've been vetoed. Since FOB is rolling with Jay-Z now, they should've had an "In Da Club"-type of video. Except in my version, a Rocawear-clad Fall Out Boy beefs with some dudes wearing G-Unit clothes and they have a dance off in an alley like in Wyclef's "We Trying To Stay Alive" video.

Then someone gets capped.

4. The slow motion jumps were dumb looking and Pete licking Joe's guitar was also stupid. Hey man, the guy from Eighteen Visions did the licking bass/guitar thing in the "You Broke Like Glass" video three years ago.

5. While watching the video, it dawned on me that the average budget for a music video by a major label artist is around the $500,000 mark and since FOB are Jay-Z's new golden boys (take that, The Killers), their budget was probably slightly more. But, for the sake of argument, that the budget was half-a-mil, think about all the shit you could buy for that much money. A house. A car. Your own arcade. Fuck, they should've made a real punk video (a shitting looking video done at someone's house on a Hi-8 camcorder) and given the rest to the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the Pakistani earthquake. Or better yet do what the Dandy Warhols did: take that money and buy a warehouse and make a multimedia center where you can have band practice, a recording studio, and a place to live. Fuck, do I have to do all the thinking for you?

Anyway, the video as a video was alright. But if you want to watch a badass music video that's really punk, check out The Blackout Pact's video.