Anthony Sarnelli

At first glance, I feel like it’s a little late in Taylor Swift’s life and career to be writing a “I liked him more than he liked me” situationship album. But damn, she really did it up. You’d be hard pressed to find a better and more scathing album about this exact subject matter. People have criticized this album because it’s too sonically similar to midnights. You’ll actually find that the slower songs on the album don’t sound like midnights, they sound like the slower more deep cut songs on Fearless and Red. Which is really interesting. This album grows on you in the long run for sure.

“Mania” is a step in the right direction for post-hiatus Fall Out Boy. Since reuniting in 2013 the band’s last 2 albums catered to a very commercial and produced arena-pop sound, rather than the pop punk and emo of their original run. The album at first glance appears to keep with that theme leaving old school fans disappointed or even shocked especially at the lead single “Young & Menace” which confidently boasts glitchy EDM sounds and warped vocals. The emo crowd might think “what in the world happened to this once great band” but there’s more than meets the eye (or ear) here. Unlike the last 2 post hiatus albums, there’s more musical diversity here. There’s not really any pop punk or emo, but there are tracks that utilize poetically clever and dark lyricism again which has hugely been missed from Fall Out Boy as of late. There’s also some absolutely gut wrenching ballads like Church and Heaven’s Gate that harken back to the soulful experimentation of their last pre-hiatus album Folie A Duex (which many fans consider their most creative album ever) There’s also some charm to how random and ADD the album sounds. There’s a pretty jarring mixture of pop/rock, soul, and reggae-hip-hop-edm influenced sounds. But it works because the theme of the album is “mania” which this soundscape abides by perfectly. The zany and not cohesive flow is what is actually the point. It may not be for some but it can be appreciated from an artistic risk taking point of view Finally, probably the most important point of all. The songs. Whether you’re talking about “Mania” “Lake Effect Kid” or the bonus tracks, the songs post “American Beauty/American Psycho” are just better. The lyrics are better, the hooks are better, the songs aren’t as annoying when played over and over again. Stylistically some may be near identical, however they ultimately sound less contrived. Which for longevity’s sake holds a lot of merit.