_____Getting paid to write music, getting paid even more to perform it for hundreds and thousands of adoring fans, and having the time of your life in between. This is the tough and terrible life led by musicians across the globe, at least, for as long as they can hack it. Usually, this isn’t for long, as almost every single one of them eventually cries out for relief, for a break, for a hiatus. It usually comes around the time of the end of the third album tour, sometimes the second if a tour has been especially excruciating, or a fourth if the band were graced with a flop of an album somewhere along the line, granting time for a quick, heavenly breather. Then there’s always special cases like Kaiser Chiefs, where they take an indefinite break because they just can’t do it anymore. Not the stresses of being in a band anymore, the whole having to write decent music that at least somebody sort of likes a bit. I guess it can’t have come as surprise though, this lot, alarm bells started ringing for most of us when Lily Allen actually made Oh My God slightly better.
___But only 14 people worldwide actually care about Kaiser Chiefs taking a hiatus, while other bands have left literally millions, including myself, kinda disappointed you didn’t pay less attention to the slightly attractive drunk girl singing almost-along to each of their songs right beside you and really savoured that last concert, with the news that they will be stepping away from the music scene for an indefinite period. It can be worse than that though, it often deprives millions of vital rite of passages. Every 21st century teenagers will remember the time they drank their first six-pack, the time they lost their virginity, and the time they saw Blink 182 live. But, wait a minute, the selfish fags decided to play god with our lives and go their separate ways and form bands that make Kaiser Chiefs look ever-so-slightly less atrocious.
____I know, I know, they usually come crawling back soon enough, in the nick of time when it comes to Blink 182, just like it’s rarely more than a few weeks between the recovered crack addicts leave rehab and the rediscovered crack addicts walk right back in. Of course, with some really fly musicians like Pete Dickherty and Amy Wine-Smokes-And-Heroin-house, that’s also literally the case. But sometimes the wait is really fucking long. For instance, Soundgarden, not that I’m a fan, I was only seven or eight when they split, but like ten years!? If Muse disappeared for ten years and then all of a sudden somersaulted back into my life, I’m not sure if I could take ‘em back… I just don’t know if I could handle that kind of hurt again… Lolzers, only joking, course I would, not that they’d ever do that to me…right?
___That, perhaps, is what makes these things so much more painful; despite the formula prescribed above predicting the dreaded hiatus, it always comes as a sickening shock to hear such talent as Kaiser Chiefs are throwing in the temporary towel. Lolzers, only joking again, that was more a Bonjela-esque soothing relief. However, the end of the decade has seen the saddening announcements of two colossal bands’ respective indefinite spells away from the studio, as a group anyways. The first, as you’ve probably all heard by now, if not I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, is the band almost everyone knows and loves. They are unique like a pretty snowflake, about as camp as one too. They are a sound so varied it’s instantly recognisable. They are probably not as good live as they should be, yet I’d still pick them over MSTRKRFT every time. They are, at their purest, a lead guitarist with a disgustingly monumental side fringe. And fantastic music. Yes, definitely, that too. It’s Bloc Party.
_____I couldn’t speak highly enough of what Kele and Ko have created in the time they‘ve been together so far, yet I‘m going to surprise quite a few of you in telling you now that there is, in fact, another band that I will miss far more. And your opinions of me are most certainly going to drop when you see who they are. But I ask you now to hear me out. Don’t X-out in disgust straight away, it’s not what it initially seems, there is actually some sense to what I have to say. It’s close to impossible to have grown up as a “noughties teen” without having had at least one of their songs on your iPod at one stage, and physically, theoretically, mathematically, and utterly impossible not to have loved it. They slip comfortably into the pop, rock, emo, and everything-in-between scene, while the hard metal and softy indie kids send them dead cats in the mail, or make pathetic attempts at witty remarks as the rest of the world Dance Dance along, depending on which of the socio-musical groups above you fit into, although you still hum along to that one single you hate yourself for loving before you were swallowed up by the prescribed narrow-minded musical opinions of whatever musical scene you are currently affiliated with. Chances are that one track is still on your iPod, although you’ve carefully hidden it so that none of your peers can find it, renamed as a Foals B-side that doesn’t exist, and only listen to it when the house is empty, but you still lock the door just in case. Then, and only then, in complete solitude, you clear your throat, break out the air guitar, and pretend you were a slightly overweight American with horrid side-burns. You’d think one would prefer to be Pete, but if you were him then you wouldn’t be able to do dirty things to him now would you? Don’t pretend you don’t know the words.
_____Now, before your jaw hit’s the floor, allow me to reassure you that in no way do I rate Fall Out Boy anywhere near the standard of Bloc Party musically, there are few bands I do. However, while the latter is quite an acquired taste, a carefully crafted delicacy, FOB are microwavable popcorn. You haven’t a clue as to how it works, and when it doesn‘t it‘s absolutely vile, but when it does, and you’re in the mood, it is divine. The first song I ever really loved was 1000 Miles, and the second was Sugar, We’re Going Down. And while I have long since buried Vanessa Carlton’s piano pop-ballad, I still rock out to Fall Out Boy’s 2X Platinum global hit on an unhealthily regular basis. Sure, at a gaff party, Helicopter is as certain to be played as that guy who gets really drunk every week and makes a fool of himself will get drunk and make a fool of himself while anyone who plays FOB is, most likely, quite a lonely person, but ya know what else always gets played? I’ve Got A Feeling This Song Sucks Balls, and that, as my funnily edited title suggests, sucks balls. And yup, every album Fall Out Boy have released has sucked similar balls, while each of Bloc Party’s were almost flawless. I even bought two of them. ___However that’s exactly why I didn’t feel sad when I heard I won’t have the chance to buy number four for at least year or two, Bloc Party have more than strong enough a back catalogue to keep me going while I wait for their glorious return. Fall Out Boy don’t. They have three and a half tracks. And those three and a half tracks have just about kept Fall Out Boy alive for me over the past three years, which saw my beloved FOB release eight singles which did as much for me as earthquakes do for Haitians, including one machete-wielding stab at a Michael Jackson cover.
_____I’m going to miss Fall Out Boy more than Bloc Party because this isn’t fork in the long road of their musical career, it’s the end. Bloc Party will be back and the roadtrip of a lifetime will resume in what I imagine will be spectacular fashion, but for FOB, c’est fini. And all I have left is three and a half photographs which will be soon lost in my musical attic of my computer hard drive. It had to end eventually, I just always dreamt it would end on a more romantic and less pathetic note than Alpha Dog. But, while not my dream ending, at least it it didn’t end in a catastrophic car crash of a third album like Kaiser Chiefs…
___I’m actually being cringe-inducingly serious here, I really loved Fall Out Boy when I was smaller. I loved those three and half singles enough that it didn’t matter everything else they wrote was, if left exposed to it for long periods of time, borderline cancerous. I loved the way the guitarist always did those ridiculous whirlwind spins at every opportunity. I loved the way their music videos have those annoying pauses in the music for a bit of pointless dialogue. Most of all, I just really fucking loved Sugar, We’re Going Down.
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