Before Fall Out Boy went into a hiatus in 2009, Patrick Stump along with the band dominated the charts through almost all the 2000’s, releasing award winning albums such as From Under the Cork Tree (2005) and Infinity on High (2007).
Along with these great selling albums, together hits such as Dance, Dance and Sugar, We’re Going Down also made the charts and dominated the top 10’s globally, Fall Out Boy was a huge success at the time, in 2013, the band came back from the hiatus with a new tour and a new full-feature album, Save Rock n’ Roll, which marked a great shift in the band’s original sound and intention, but also achieving great success in the latest works, Fall Out Boy still releases music to this day and has a solid fanbase and still holds commercial relevance.
Fall Out Boy is remembered by some as just an emo/pop-punk from the 2000’s and nothing more, which is not the case, the band managed to achieve different perspectives and a new outlet on the genre back in the day and sounded different from the rest, having not so obvious influences and taking the concept of “pop appeal” to another level, taking the feelings of being an outcast and different to be globally known, crowding stadiums around the world.
While in hiatus, the band’s members decided to work on their own projects and music, and rhythm guitarist and vocalist Patrick Stump, like the rest, decided to work on his own projects, releasing his debut solo album: Soul Punk (2011).
The band was already showing major shifts in their core sound in their latest albums before the hiatus but keeping the essence that made the band known and loved, with the best example of these changes being the last album before the hiatus Folie A Deux (2009).
Stump explained that he named the album Soul Punk because he wanted to contribute to the musical vernacular of both. "I'm just as pissed off as I was while screaming in punk bands, but I feel like I'm directing it into something positive and centered around love." He created a video on his website that shows him playing numerous instruments, starting with drum kit then adding more such as synthesizer, cowbell, electric guitar and bass, amongst others.
It was no news at the time that Stump was a multi-instrumentalist, but the album was a great showcase of Patrick’s talents as a musician, given fact that it was, recorded, produced, played, and completed solely by Patrick, a true brew of a solo album.
The fans at the time were to Fall Out Boy’s original pop-punk sound from the beginning of their career, but it is no mystery for the fans that known about the members, and their influences that Fall Out Boy was way more than just a pop-punk band, but a group of music enthusiasts, so their shifts in style had nothing to do with selling out, just the group showing their wide arrange of influences.
Soul Punk has a very different and original sound apart from everything Stump did with the band back in the day but was heavily criticized by people and fans at the time that wouldn’t understand what the musician was trying to put in the table, musically speaking, so the album fell into forgottenness.
The album is a classic and deserves attention and revision, with great highlights in “Allie” and “Run Dry (X Heart X Fingers)”
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