I'm listening though FOB's discography one album per month this year, and August is PAX AM Days. (EOWYG, TTTYG, FUCT, IOH, FAD, BLD1, SRAR so far)

I'll be honest, when I set this goal for myself, I didn't realize it was literally 13 minutes long. I assumed it was a longer EP like Evening Out With Your Girlfriend. So I've been a little disappointed, especially since I can see some of these songs getting a more fleshed out, fuller version and this could have been a bigger EP. But after reading up on how PAX AM came to be, I understand what they were going for, and I like it, it just left me wanting more.

So I'm curious, what is your favorite song from PAX AM Days and why? I feel like Caffeine Cold is the song I've seen people talk about the most, but it's probably not even in my top three 😬 My number one for this album right now is "Hot to the Touch, Cold On the Inside" and my number two is "Love, Sex, Death."

So what track(s) do you love, and why? And I'm curious do most fans like this EP, or is it just kind of an oddity?

Fall Out Boy have always made pop culture references in their music. Heck, the name Fall Out Boy itself is taken from The Simpsons. So for a while now I've been trying to compile a list of every pop culture reference, or at least every movie reference, in Fall Out Boy's music. I've been going through every album on my own looking for references, while also looking at the lyrics and annotations on Genius since I know I won't find everything myself. Ultimately the goal here is to have a list of all the movies a fan would need to watch in order to fully understand every reference in every Fall Out Boy song. A daunting task, I know, but I think it's worth at least knowing where a reference comes from, even if I don't get around to watching every movie.

While this is a fun project, it's also a bit exhausting reading through every single line of every song and all the annotations and everything. So I want to share what I have so far, partly so that anyone who wants to see it can find it all in one place, and partly so that you folks can help me out with things I've missed.

So far I've gone through all of EOWYG, TTTYG, FUCT, and SRAR. I've thought of a couple references in other albums just off the top of my head but I haven't done a deep dive into the lyrics and annotations yet. So anyway without further ado, here's my list so far.

EOWYG

• Honorable Mention - "I can be your John Cusack" According to Genius, this song seems to be mainly referencing the movie Say Anything but might also reference Better Off Dead and/or Sixteen Candles. Sixteen Candles would later be referenced on FUCT.
• Pretty in Punk - The title is a reference to the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink.
• Growing Up - "I dried my eyes, now it's 'Rushmore'" Referencing the 1998 movie Rushmore which would later be referenced again on TTTYG.
• Parker Lewis Can't Lose - The title (and the line in the chorus) reference the 1990 sitcom of the same name.

TTTYG

• Tell That Mick - The title is almost a direct quote from the 1998 movie Rushmore.
• Saturday - "Pete and I attacked the laws of Astoria" (some lyrics say "Lost Astoria" instead, I can't really tell which is correct). According to Genius, Astoria, OR, is the setting of The Goonies which is a popular coming-of-age movie.

FUCT

• Of All the Gin Joints in All the World - The title is a reference to a line in the movie Casablanca.
• Sugar We're Going Down - "I'll be your number one with a bullet" might be a reference to another John Cusack movie, High Fidelity. Also there's a movie called Number One with a Bullet.
• Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner - The title is a reference to a line in the movie Dirty Dancing.
• A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me - Sixteen Candles featuring John Cusack.
• Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying - a quote from The Shawshank Redemption.

IOH

• I'm Like A Lawyer - "Two out of three ain't bad" is a Meatloaf reference. Not a movie reference, I just wanted an excuse to watch Fight Club again.

SRAR

• Where Did the Party Go - This one might be a stretch, but according to Genius, "Silent films stars stuck in talking cinema light" might be inspired by the 2011 French film The Artist which became popular right around the time Pete and Patrick were getting together to try and write this album.
• Rat a Tat - "I kept wishing she had blonde ambition" might be a reference to the film Blonde Ambition. (though I personally think it's likely a play on "blind ambition" and the repeated references to blonde hair, but I haven't seen the movie so it could be both.)
• Save Rock and Roll - According to Genius, "You are what you love, not who loves you" is a reference to the 2002 film Adaptation.

ABAP

• American Beauty and American Psycho are both movies.

SMFS

• Heartbreak Feels So Good - Not a movie reference per se, but this seems likely a reference to AMC Theater's movie intro "Heartbreak feels good in a place like this." Also Pete Wentz has confirmed that the line "Is there a word for bad miracle?" is a reference to Jordan Peele's movie Nope.
• Heaven, Iowa - "Heaven, Iowa" is the setting of the movie Field of Dreams. The first few lines also reference 2-3 other movies, depending how you look at it. Mullholland Drive, Moonlight Sonata, and A Star Is Born are all movies, but they might not all be references to the movies, since Mullholland Drive is a real place, and Moonlight Sonata is a song, so either of those could be referencing the real things, and not the movies named after the things.

So, let me know if you think I've gotten anything wrong so far! I still have a ways to go before I get through the entire discography but I figured I have enough to at least share what I've got so far. I have wondered, is this the kind of thing that would be worth adding to the FOB Wikia? I haven't been an active part of a Wikia fandom page in years but if anybody from the FOB one thinks this would be worthwhile I'd be happy to work on making a page for it.

Last year, my wife did a challenge to make her end-of-the-year Apple Replay (or Spotify Wrapped, if you prefer) be all of her favorite band's albums in release order. I thought that was awesome, so this year I'm doing it with my favorite band, Fall Out Boy.

I've reached a moment of decision that I've been dreading.

Fall Out Boy only have 8 full studio albums. So I decided to include their two large EPs as well. So January was EOWYG, February was TTTYG, March was FUCT, April was IOH, and May was FAD.

I'm sure you can probably guess what I'm getting at. This month, I have a decision to make.

Do I skip the hiatus and just move right into listening to SRAR?

Or do I take a month off and listen to Soul Punk, since that was the biggest of the group's hiatus projects?

Or do I take my own mini-hiatus and just listen to "Believers Never Die vol. 1" this month?

To be clear, this isn't like a "I can only listen to this one album all month" kind of thing. I can listen to other stuff, just as long as I make 100% sure that the album of the month is my most-listened-to album so it shows up on the Replay/Wrapped for the month.

On one hand, just doing all the albums (plus EOWYG and PAXAM) is the easiest choice. But I can also see the merit of including Soul Punk to represent the hiatus. But also it would be kind of satisfying to have five albums then Believers Never Die 1, then five more albums then close out the year with Believers Never Die 2.

So I ask the fandom, what would you do if you were me?

I won't guarantee that I'll do whatever the poll says, even though I most likely will. I just have to think about it and wanted some other opinions beyond my own.

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