Fall Out Boy and Public Enemy together?

Today on Please Don't Make Bottle Go Back To Work Tomorrow, we check out something brand new, and buffer it with something brand old. Don't worry, i didn't know there was a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. and you don't need me to tell you about it, so instead of Lana Del Rey's new album, we'll check out Fall Out Boy's new album. After that we'll check out Public Enemy's second album and possibly see how what's going on now compares to what was going on in the mid 80s. 

So Much (For) Stardust 

Fall Out Boy has never been concerned with being in any way consistent when it comes to musical expression. Totally fine, genres shouldn't be the goal. On that front their latest So Much (For) Stardust doesn't disappoint. Massive orchestra, Disco, a sort of Michael Jackson impression, catchy Pop Punk guitars followed by bombastic Emo, some Electronica, old-school Rock & Roll, it's the audio equivalent of the day after a crazy house party. On one hand that's totally great, they create whatever they want and it's super fun, but on the other hand i constantly have this terribly unnerving feeling that i'm listening to a Maroon 5 album. 

It's not just that Patrick Stump and Adam Levine sound similar, it's the whole package. The difference of course is the sarcasm, but then the post-ironic massiveness of the whole London Metropolitan Orchestra and looking fondly back to 2019 hits you and i guess the real message is everything really is as stupid and pointless as Ethan Hawke's monologue says it is, so just enjoy your melt. 

Except it's not my melt, it's somebody else's melt imposed upon me. It is preposterously expensive and simultaneously incredibly unlucrative to take care of yourself.  In fact, i'd go so far as to say that's the dirty little secret. Wealth comes from demanding everyone else takes care of you. If you want to play the blame game, then that's not the government's fault, and it's certainly not the working class's fault for working. No, it's the capitalist mode of production that takes the blame; separating the ownership of production from the production itself, and valuing the exchange greater than the sum of its supply and demand. Government taxes business, but business pushes that expense off onto the general public.  

That's a lot to lump on Fall Out Boy's shoulders, but they brought it up. Granted it's presented ironically, but this is still the chronic hangover from 2020 and a whole lot of people are loudly demanding a hair of the dog, if you catch my drift. Then again, i fully admit that i don't understand this bizarre remix of irony inside a post-ironic bubble, so maybe someone else should take a turn explaining it to me. 

So much stardust, stardust is not all it's cracked up to be, why did we buy so much unuseful stardust? Maybe going back to the 80s will help.... 

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back 

Public Enemy had two goals in mind for their second album. First, it should be the Hip Hop equivalent of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On in terms of sociopolitical consciousness, and second, it should be ridiculously high energy live. The result is a bombastic cacophony of musica concrète, hard core rap from Chuck D, and whatever insanity issues from Flavor Flav's mouth brain. As far as i know, it's still the most influential Rap album on pretty much every list of historically important albums. 

Butt size aside, i like this a whole lot better than Fall Out Boy, and i cannot lie. Chuck D liked to say Phil Specter had his wall of sound, Public Enemy had a wall of noise. Yeah, but it's totally understandable noise. Compared to Fall Out Boy's hot mess of chaos on the maroon side of the spectrum, the Beat-Scratch-Sample-Rap-Hype ensemble is so completely focused and fundamental that you know you can believe what you're hearing. That doesn't mean you have to agree with everything, like say thinking Farrakhan isn't problematic, but at least you have a clear picture of what Chuck D is actually saying without a bunch of connotational guesswork getting in the way. Even Flavor Flav, who Beck is clearly but affectionately lampooning with the random interjections on Loser, serves an unquestionable purpose here. It's not so much what he says as the consistent "you know that's right" function it serves that gives it meaningful purpose. What are the orchestra or the random brass/string interules accompanying Fall Out Boy supposed to mean? It's not like they're being called out like a Metallica/Motley Crüe guitar solo, or even an implied "symphony orchestra will back me up on this." When you hold these two albums side by side, Fall Out Boy clearly echoes the Beatles saying "[jazz hands] we're pointless," while Public Enemy clearly enunciates "listen up, we have a point to make." Don't get me wrong, the former CAN be enjoyable, but i'm not going to apologize for finding the latter more valuable and lamenting that Fall Out Boy suffers from having a lot of other people do a lot of the work for them while Public Enemy had most of this album locked down before even entering the studio, thanks to half the group staying home to work on the next album while Chuck D and Flavor Flav toured. 

Fun story about that, everyone was kind of freaked out about having to work on Public Enemy's album, but once they started everyone was like "oh wow, these guys take making music serious." 

But how unknowingly anti-semitic is this album, Bottle? Well, i mean it doesn't take more than a dozen, let alone millions, to stretch the title alone to encompass that possible meaning. That's the thing about propaganda, it conveniently means whatever you want it to mean while bypassing the "are we all on the same page here?" discussion. Most likely, this particular sentiment is part of the much larger Marxist critique of systematic racism, but synecdoche is just such a convenient rhetorical device that "blame the Jews" turns literal. I'm not excusing the sentiment, but i am insinuating that the Nation of Islam is no more or less a cult than Christianity or Buddhism or whatever the hell Gorillaz got themselves into on Cracker Island.

A size comparison might help. NOI has roughly 50,000 members. That's basically the upper limit of a single small town in the US. Westborough Baptist Church had roughly 70 members at the height of their hate brigade, the klan is estimated at 3 to 6 thousand (because they're anonymous), there are roughly 20 million Jews, 51 million Baptists, a billion plus Catholics, and 2 billion Muslims. What does any of that have to do with Public Enemy pointing out how ridiculous it is to be scared of Black people? I only say that because Chuck D has always said the group believes all people are equal, he doesn't consider himself an African American, it's entirely possible to be critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, they like Anthrax, i don't think sampling or file sharing is any form of substantial crime, no sane person supports mandatory segregation, and you'd have to live under several dozen rocks to think Security of the First World is an actual paramilitary organization fronted by a rap group from Long Island. Don't believe the hype. 

The reality is Professor Griff got fired not long after this album like Dave #2 because nobody needs that level of complication in their life; the group promoting equality and standing up to historic discrimination while one of its members adds his own anti-semititic/black-supremicist ideological spin. Griff has since expressed remorse for many of his earlier views, not so much in terms of denying that he believes that stuff, but in terms of claiming that stuff is actually true just because he believes it. That may not be satisfactory for many, but it at least puts him on level footing with Axl and a step above Scott Adams. Party for your right to fight, sure, but the fight is for true equality in defiance of racist superstition not for your own superstitiously racist turn on the tire swing. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes Nation of Islam as a hate group, not because they and similar groups oppose historic systematic racism by white nationalists, and not even really because they promoted Black Nationalism or separatism, but because they openly promote anti-semetic, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-feminist intolerance. That is in no way a determination that they are inherently dangerous or criminal, only that they have shitty opinions. 

Farrakhan and the NOI are also problematic because he openly lauds the alt-right, Hitler as a great leader, loves him some L Ron Hubbard style alien worship, and does openly preach toward a separate segregationalist Black America. He doesn't so much hate white people as think they are inferior and lacking intrinsic divinity. That's problematic, not least because it's intentionally just reversed nonsense nationalism. All ethnic nationalism is nonsense, nations are a made up thing rooted in racism, which in case i haven't said it enough is nonsense. 

There is only one human race, and no biological or anthropological definition of race adequately explains the vast diversity of humany physiology or appearance or genetic variation. What is true is that the belief that there are different races of human, either visible on the surface or secretly hiding in our fundamental genetics, has caused widespread suffering, abhorrent violence, and severe psychological trauma. If you want to argue that, kindly don't because you're wrong and you'll get kicked out of Public Enemy to forge a not particularly successful solo career. 

One final important note, we typically forget that Malcom X grew intensely disillusioned with NOI, became a Sunni Muslim in 1964 (the year before he was assassinated), and embraced the Civil Rights movement he had earlier criticized. Leaving your wacky space alien cult is a privelege all humans should get to enjoy. You can still believe in aliens if you want, you just shouldn't take it to the level of religio-political zealotry. 

Regardless, my point is i'm with Chuck D on this. Racism itself is the problem, and sometimes you have to shout about how stupid it is. Going back to work on Monday is stupid too, but i guess i don't have much choice. My melt or someone else's, still have to be a respectable member of society. 

Thanks for letting me invade your brain space for a while. I had fun, hopefully you did too.