Alliances With Others Formulate for an Exhilarating Fall Out Boy Merchandise and Record

With its newest release, Fall Out Boy has transformed "Folie a Deux," (French for "a madness shared by two") into a masterpiece created by an epic combination of amazing artists.

The band collaborated with artists from about every end of the musical spectrum in the production of "Folie a Deux," fusing ideas of talents from Lil' Wayne to Brendon Urie (Panic at the Disco) to Gabe Saporta (Cobra Starship) and Debbie Harry (Blondie). In fact, "20 Dollar Nose Bleed" is choc-full of joyful sounding visions of prairie life paralleling Panic at the Disco's newest album, "Pretty. Odd." The guitar part in "I Don't Care" also whispers a hint of ZZ Top's "La Grange," and the intro to "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet" shouts "Europop," Eiffel 65's gem from the year 1999.

It's always great to see a band expand their horizons and experiment with a style foreign to the one they have been playing for years as Fall Out Boy Merch and LP is sure to break new sales records. Fall Out Boy probably hit up about five different genres in "Folie A Deux." They even ventured further into the hip-hop world after working with Kanye West earlier in their career and offer an alternate version of "America's Sweethearts [South Rakkas Remix]" as well as an acoustic version of the same song.

"Folie a Deux" reverts back to a time when music was more about the music itself, rather than just what people wanted to hear. The band took this interesting concept, and executed it nearly flawlessly. Fall Out Boy used some lyrics from their previous hits like "This Ain't a Scene" and "Sugar, We're Going Down" as background in the second half of "What a Catch Donnie," and Joe Trohman's guitar lines match the vocals of Patrick Stump at just the right times to send chills down anyone's spine.

Filled with funky, in-your-face guitar licks everywhere, including "West Coast Smoker," Trohman puts on a great show. That's not to discredit Pete Wentz at all, who does the bass justice, which is very rare in today's music. Wentz streams out relatively simple bass lines that contribute to the sound of the band and do more than just balance the higher pitched guitars of Trohman and Stump.

Much like the way Eddie Van Halen teamed up with Michael Jackson for the original version of "Beat It," Fall Out Boy joined forces with John Mayer and released their own spot-on version of the number one. When an artist covers such a groundbreaking and influential song, it either needs to undergo a profoundly radical change or remain as an almost identical copy. Everything about this cover is perfect, and it includes a sound you'll never hear today. John Mayer's guitar solo matches the exact same hurricane-force ferocity of the legendary Eddie Van Halen's original take.

You could say that this album is Fall Out Boy's "Back In Black," but I say nay, it is much more.

Read more of the Fall out Boy discography and watch my favorite Fall out Boy video.