OK SO HEAR ME OUT, that Fall Out Boy x Kanye West collab from the mid-200s... was kinda fire. Most would question the combo today, but at this point, would probably just say it’s Kanye being Kanye, again. In 2007 though? A year where Fall Out Boy did a 1/4 million first week sales and Kanye was coming off his 4th straight triple platinum (or better) album, that pairing made a lot more sense than it should’ve.
The two joined forces on a remix of This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arm Race, a song that went platinum as a single, peaking at 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Honestly, the combination turns out kinda funny, with Kanye’s verse being borderline comedy. Whether he meant it to be that way, I got no clue, and probably never will. Kanye’s first line of his verse is “Now, I don’t know what the hell this song is talking ‘bout, do you?” Might just be me, that’s lowkey funny as hell. I mean, Fall Out Boy’s frontman Patrick Stump does have a nice reputation for a delivery that’s, uh, “hard” to understand. There's something about Kanye’s brashness right off the bat, attacking that and the song’s lyrics, that's just always got me. Add in the second half of Ye’s verse where he raps:
“Take a look at Fall Out Boy; Since they ain’t black; When they get money they don’t ball out boy; They just buy tight jeans till they nuts hang all out boy; They figure Ye' dress tight; So we gon' dress tighter; He dress white, so we gon' dress whiter"
I don’t know man, that’s just funny to me. Fall Out Boy wrote this song about their newfound popularity and their impact on the scene community. Knowing that, but then hearing Kanye hop on the remix and rap bout this type of shit never fails to make me laugh.
Beside all that, the song itself is actually pretty good. Much more importantly though, it helped to break down the barrier between genres. There were a lot of interesting albums and songs during the mid-2000s, many of which were the precursor us to this genre-fluid music industry we more or less have today (looking at bands like Linkin Park/Fort Minor and Hollywood Undead). This one song though, it always stuck out to me. While whether or not it stands the test of time is highly questionable, it still deserves its place in music history. Give it a listen, you can decide for yourself if it’s still a good song or just some weird ass collab we never needed in our lives.
While you're at it, check out the music video for the OG song to remind yourself that mid-2000s was filled with highs and lows. Them fashion trends though? Definitely not a high point of the decade.
Comments