Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
Fall Out Boy f/ Kanye West :: "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arm's Race"Remix (2007)
Two days prior to writing this review, I learned that Fall Out Boy
drummer Andy Hurley spent time with metal-core outfit Vegan Reich, who
were as militant, uncompromising and legally insane as their name
suggests. Three days ago, I was willing to ignore the band completely;
"Dance Dance" was only a slightly less annoying single than
whatever the hell Panic! at the Disco's song about the goddamned door
was called (I was humored to learn FOB's bassist Pete Wentz personally
signed that band to his label, which I supposed made him the Trent
Reznor to that band's Marilyn Manson). But then, I gave up. FOB was
becoming a kind of talisman, or maybe they were something like the
number 23 for Jim Carrey. They'd already conquered radio, the
internet, MTV; now they were following me into the kitchen. They had
turned from rumor into gathering storm, they had become real, and were
beginning to make me wonder whether or not I was.
But then, not even three hours later, Kanye West's remix of "This
Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" crossed my desk. I breathed easier. They weren't real, after all; rather, they had become something more
than a pop band, or even a group who makes pop music. They were now a
pop current, their own weather pattern unleashed into the air,
gobbling all that came in their path. The band still retains a small
army of coal-haired young women and men, who believe the band is as
tied to the pseudo-underground which birthed them as the unfilled
stars on their clavicles. These people are only deluding themselves…
well, no, let's be fair, Fall Out Boy are really leading them on hard.
Check the last few frames of the video for "Arms Race," where it turns
out the band's life in US Magazine notoriety was all a dream.
They go on to pile in to their van to play a show at a packed K of C
Hall, kids and band screaming back at each other in holy union. Their
fans are meant to see a wink, the message being that all of the
preceding pop references are silly, and what's really important is
playing the show, giving something to the kids. This would be like
believing Eminem was "only playing" after four minutes of gleeful
mother raping, female sodomizing, and violence inventing in "Kill
You." Even children can see past the "just kidding" cop out. No, damn
the torpedoes, Fall Out Boy were going to the place where, with West's
remix, they've now arrived: sweet pop oblivion.
This is really why I like this remix -- more so than because it relieves
me of the burden of liking the original song (the jury's long been
out), or that the beat itself is delicious, or West's fall-down
hilarious meta-rap in the song's mid section. "I don't know what the
hell this song be talkin' bout, do you?" For about a month I've been
asking the same question: I've come to the conclusion that since arms
are words, the ridiculously long, overstuffed song titles (ex. "I
Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got was this Song Written
About Me," "A Little Less Sixteen Candles a Little More 'Touch Me,'"
"This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race") are them stockpiling "arms"
with likeminded bands (My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco). If
West had stopped there, it'd be a winner. But he keeps going, throwing
battle rhymes at the band's feet, culminating when he evidently thinks
the band's ur-geeky emo-fashion is biting his nerd rap shit: "they
figure 'ye dress tight, so we gon' dress tighter, he dress white so we
gon' dress whiter." It should be noted he de-emphasizes the r in
"tighter" and over-emphasizes it in "whiter," and evidently has never
heard of Texas is the Reason.
This is West in good fun, but frankly I feel he has a right to be
pissed: he knows why he's here. He's not here because he crafted
"Jesus Walks" or "Gold Digger," but because he's Kanye West,
marquee name, cultural shorthand for success and egoism. West is his
own jet stream, the same one FOB wants to parachute right into. So he
gives them a better beat than the song deserves (really, this thing is
magnificent, all gospel groans, late night drum pads and light keys;
if one ignores what the vocalists are saying, this becomes downright
fuckable) and gives them a good ticking off: this song is meaningless,
they dress ridiculous, Wentz's balls are all over the internet. Sure,
the band thinks it's funny. Remember this is the guy that stormed on
the stage of MTV Europe and demanded to know why his costly video with
Pamela Anderson didn't win. But by releasing this remix, Fall Out Boy
seems to think it's a legitimate question: it cost money, it has
Pamela Anderson, it's by Kanye West. By the pop calculus, this
is airtight reasoning. So is this: West disses the band because he
knows they'd be stupid enough to put it out, precisely because they'd
be stupid if they didn't. West must know they're that far into the
single as meta-experiment, and this is what they want: Kanye being all
Kanye, Fall Out Boy being synonymous with Kanye, having their cake and
eating it too. This is what they paid for. This ain't a song, it's a
god damned…
…or else the band's sense of humor really is that good. Wentz is the
same man who attempted to kill himself using the sedative Atavan, and
he wrote a song about it entitled "Atavan Halen." That's funny, in a
good way, like this remix is. Still, there are some who don't see it.
One fan on an internet message board complained that West was
"unqualified to talk about pop punk," which is fucking stupid on all
levels it could be, but not least because I'd like to know where this
person hears the punk. I've heard this song a lot on the radio in the
past month, and while rock radio stations spins it a fair shake, it's
nothing to the total saturation coverage it gets on Top 40 radio. And
ya know something? It fits right in, to the compressed sound of the
band to the bottom heavy mastery. This ain't The Mister T. Experience,
it's a god damn lunge into the pop ephemera. And thank you Kanye West,
you've made it happen: you've produced the point where the song went
from an object -- a thing that can be criticized and discussed -- to an
event by itself, the vanishing point where liking or disliking it
became completely irrelevant.
Christopher Alexander :: 27 February 2007 |
⊙ :: Comments are turned off for this article.
