So, All Time Low dropped some new music videos recently and boy of boy do I have some feelings.

Their new album Last Young Renegade is coming out in June on Fueled By Ramen (the label of Panic! and TØP, so hopefully they get some mainstream airplay); and they’ve already dropped two singles – “Dirty Laundry” (which I used in last time’s music video comparison) and “Last Young Renegade,” the album’s title track. Both of these songs have videos.

And the videos are where it gets interesting.

“Dirty Laundry” came first and it is literally my aesthetic right now.

The video starts with a title card of sorts:

If you look closely, it says “Vol. 1” in the little rose picture. Compare that with the “Vol. 2” in the “Last Young Renegade” Video:

So, these two videos at least are connected. This is further supported by Alex getting into his car at the end of “Dirty Laundry” and being in his car at the beginning of “Last Young Renegade.”

Both also end with “A Young Renegades Production”

Now that we’ve established that the videos are linked, it’s time to get into the fun part . . . symbolism (yes, groan because the curtains are just blue, goddammit!)

Like their previous album Future Hearts, Last Young Renegade also appears to have a symbol; which if you look at it, appears to be the same symbol upside down in a spade.

As shown, the symbol features prominetly in both videos, and even flashes on the TV at the end of “Last Young Renegade.” This in a way reminds one of the propoganda of the anti-music cult lead by Courtney Love (yes, that Courtney Love) in The Youngblood Chronicles.

The images on the title cards also appear on the jackets of the band members. The rose from “Dirty Laundry” is on Alex’s jacket and the skeleton hand thing from “Last Young Renegade” is on Jack’s. The design on Jack’s also includes the spade eye “logo.”

The rose is also featured elsewhere in the “Dirty Laundry” video; both in the window of the laundromat and on the wall opposite of the spade eye.  I’m not sure if there’s a real meaning to that, but it adds a bit of continuity and it’s aesthetically pleasing.

There also appears to be small hints towards the next video in each one. “Last Young Renegade” can be heard at the beginning of the “Dirty Laundry” video, and Alex’s ringtone might be a hint to the sound of the next song, which will likely be “Nice2KnoU,” based on this accentuated sign.

So, in conclusion, All Time Low’s next album appears to be leaning towards at least a minor longform of videos with lots of mild symbolism that is perhaps setting up for something big in future videos (why else would there be a flickering image of the logo for nearly 10 seconds?).  Also, if there isn’t a full set of albums with an eye version of the suites of cards, I will be irked. I will also be irked if those jackets aren’t merch, because I already own a Fall Out Boy replica jacket, but that’s a winter jacket and I need to be able to show how hard core I am in all seasons.

We all do some things in our youth that we’re not particularly proud of. And this being the age of the internet, those things are around forever. Especially if you’re famous.

So today, we get to look at then and now music videos! One video will be among the band’s first, and one will be among their last.

We start with All Time Low. Their first video is for the song “Circles,” which features at least one surfer dude necklace and shows that guitars belong at stomach level, it’s a great time that surprisingly lacks proper emo hair. It’s long enough, but it’s poofy. No flat-ironed emo bangs in sight. Compare this to the recent video for “Dirty Laundry.” Right off the bat, the video quality has improved tremendously. The video also looks like an aesthetic blog, not to the point of Troye Sivan’s “Youth,” but it has that feel to it. This video also contains the flat ironed bangs and a way better fashion sense. I really hope the Young Renegades jacket becomes merch, so I can buy another jacket that I will totally wear. Side note, this upcoming album is on Fueled By Ramen – the same as Panic! At The Disco and Twenty Øne Piløts – rather than Hopeless records, not that that’s relevant information. Maybe it’ll mean airplay of actual ATL rather than that song called “All Time Low” that sounds like it’s by TØP but isn’t by TØP (Jon Bellion was an opener on the indoor version of the Emøtiønal Røadshøw tour, though).

And now My Chemical Romance. It’s pretty hard to find things relating to their first album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Nevertheless, I managed to find the video for “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” by chance. So edgy. Gerard looks dead, Mikey’s wearing glasses, the lighting is terrible when it’s not being used for dramatic effect, the video is only in one corner of the screen, I realized that the song is about a guy asking his girlfriend to stab him in the heart with a stake if he gets bitten by a vampire because that was how you killed vampires circa 2003 . . . And then we have “Na Na Na,” mostly because it was what was going to play next if I had autoplay on. The video fills up the screen, suggests that “drugs” is a bad word, it’s so vibrant and edgy but in like a hipster way, it has my favourite version of Gerard Way, two more jackets that I would totally wear (Dead Pegasus and Cobra Kid), set up for a longform video that never happened . . .

Fall Out Boy is an anomaly of sorts. Their throwback is “Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy” which despite being posted a year before the previous throwback songs, has much better camera quality, like better than some recent phone cameras. This is pre-lots of eyeliner Pete Wentz and involves the Patrick Stump that still wore trucker hats rather than fedoras. I can’t really complain about this one, so good job camera guys of circa 2007. As for a more recent video, I present “American Beauty/American Psycho,” because why not choose the title track. While I don’t like how it sometimes seems like it’s buffering, I do like the ballerina telekineticly beating up the cover art kid with the the effects that make it look like old film.

And finally, Panic! At The Disco. We’re gonna choose good ol’ “I Write Sins, Not Tragedies” as the song, because who doesn’t love it? Like most Panic! videos, it’s kinda a hot mess as to what’s going on, but it has pretty good cinematography that holds up pretty well to this day. “Emperor’s New Clothes,” (which continues “This Is Gospel“), for one, only features Brendon Urie, because he’s the only one left, but it is rather dramatic and has some pretty legit prosthetic makeup.

Now go, my children, experience the Fremdschämen.

(Because of course the Germans have a word for second-hand embarrassment.)

You make friends, you break friends. That’s how life is.

Same goes for bands.

However, bands are unique in that their members will often go on to solo careers.

The Big Three of pop-punk have all done this in some way or another.

My Chemical Romance is the most “traditonal” breakup, in that it has happened and likely isn’t going to un-happen, because if there was any time for a reunion tour, it would be the 10th anniversary of The Black Parade, never mind that it was only 3 years after the breakup.

Gerard Way went solo with the album Hesitant Alien, which includes the song “Brother,” which remains his only solo album. Frank Iero, one of the gitaurists, has a solo career under the name frnkiero andthe cellabration, releasing the albums Stomachaches in 2014, the touring band of which morphed into Frank Iero and the Patience, who released Parachutes in 2016. The extent of Ray Toro – the other gitaurist-‘s solo work is the odd Soundcloud song or two.

Fall Out Boy did not break up, per se, but rather had a hiatus, which lasted from the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2010. During the hiatus, Pete Wentz formed a duo, Andy Hurley bounced around (because what band needs a static drummer?), and Joe Trohman was in one of the bands with Andy. Only Patrick Stump had a solo venture, but it didn’t work out too well.

His only album was entitled Soul Punk, which did not tour or even sell well.

And then Panic!. Panic! is an odd one.

And why, do you ask?

In short, the band has devolved into a solo project, as it is now literally just Brendon Urie.

It started as a quartet, but they switched a guy out, then became a duo, then became a trio, then a duo again, then the guy that made them a trio was demoted back to a touring member, leaving just Brendan for studio recording purposes (though to be fair, he does play basically everything on Death of a Bachelor, and has a harpsichord credit on Pretty. Odd.).

As for the former members, Ryan Ross has a few Soundcloud songs and Jon Walker has 3 EPs and 2 LPs.

Looks like the phrase “Make friends, make friends, never ever break friends, if you do, you’ll catch a flu” doesn’t hold true for breaking bands.

Today we’re gonna talk about a song that fits into both the movie music video and cover categories.

And the song is (drumroll) . . . “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance.

The song appears in the movie Watchmen. It’s loud, fast, and about half the words are slightly less than intelligible. A very MCR style with maybe just a touch of Fall Out Boy.

The original is by Bob Dylan, and is quite different. For one, the song is about 10 minutes long and decidedly less hype. The tempo is much slower and you can understand all of the words (which is actually why I know most of the words now, thanks, Alex). There’s even a harmonica break. It’s pretty chill. In short, from my very limited knowledge, it is very Bob Dylan-y.

As for the movie portion, well, you’d never know by looking at the video. The movie itself is a comic book adaption, with the basic storyline being something similar to The Incredibles but with communism thrown in, you know, your standard Cold War stuff. The video shows a concert that gets a little too rowdy, resulting in riot police showing up and the band getting arrested.

This take may be due to the fact that the song was only in the end credits (waste of a song, really; this isn’t Marvel where everyone’s gonna wait for the credits to end before they leave), and the fact that aside from the score itself, the other songs on the soundtrack were all existing songs. Basically, all of the songs used were mixed to convert to 5.1 surround sound for film purposes (basically all of the songs are from 1985 or before, when the story takes place).

The other Bob Dylan songs on the soundtrack varied from their original form as well. “All Along the Watchtower” is covered by Jimi Hendrix; and while the Bob Dylan version of “The Times They Are a-Changing” is used, it’s looped in a way to allow the song to span the entire six minute opening.

But yes, how’s that for double trouble?

Ah, the movie music video. Otherwise known as “if I wanted to see the song in the movie, I’d watch the movie.”

Because let’s face, most music videos for songs written for movies show the artist in a semi-relevant setting cut with scenes from the movie. Take “Heathens,” for example. It features the duo in jail for general music video purposes intersperesed with what I assume to be scenes from the movie (unfortunately, I did not get to watch the hot mess that is Suicide Squad).

On the other end of the spectrum, is the video for “Immortals” by Fall Out Boy. The song is from Big Hero 6 and is featured in the training montage. However, the official video posted to FOB’s Vevo is literally just four minutes of a Baymax vinyl spinning from different angles. It feels like some weird version of Baby Einstein, but without the classical music and paintings and puppets and stuff.

Now, presume that you’re a emo teenager in 2009. There’s a new movie coming out called Jennifer’s Body. It’s going to have songs by Panic! (now a two-man show), Hayley Williams, All Time Low, Cute Is What We Aim For, and Dashboard Confessional. Also, Megan Fox is gonna be in it.

Sounds cool, right?

Statistically, you didn’t go see it (it only made $31.5 million in it’s box office run). Probably because it was rated R.

Anyway, short version – Amanda Syfried (Needy) and Megan Fox (Jennifer) are friends. They go to see a band at a bar. Then the bar catches on fire and Megan Fox leaves with the band. Now it’s time for some good ol’ black magic. The band, somehow thinking that Jennifer is a virgin (I mean, c’mon, she’s played by Megan Fox) try to sacrifice her to Satan for fame and fortune. While the band gets their fame and fortune, Jennifer is turned into a succubus and ends up killing/eating/whatever-ing four guys, including Needy’s boyfriend. And there’s a short makeout scene between Jennifer and Needy somewhere between killings, because apparently we really just needed that (though I guess this is what you get from the team behind Juno). Needy then kills Jennifer with a box cutter and is sent to an asylum, which she then breaks out of and kills the members of the band in revenge. Obviously, there’s a lot more intrigue of “why is she acting so weird?” and “what happened to these dead guys?” but this is the important stuff.

The movie was a critical “meh,” but hey, at least the sound track was decent.

But of course it features the annoying movie cut ins.

“New Perspective” by Panic! at the Disco features the band/duo walking through a high school in suits and sunglasses cut with some of the more dramatic scenes. These scenes are primarily Jennifer attacking at least 3 of her victims and the brief adventure in lesbianism, though the fire does show up for a bit.

None of the other big name songs have actual videos (I guess this is what you get for an independent film with a soundtrack of small label bands), so have some cringey 2009 lyric videos or something, I’m going to bed.

“Teenagers” Hayley Williams

“Toxic Valentine” All Time Low

“Time” Cute Is What We Aim For

“Finishing School” Dashboard Confessional

Well, I’m not.

But the bands are.

As the year winds down (thankfully), bands begin to announce tours for the winter concert season. And of course bandom gets quite hype for this, even though everyone is poor and tickets are expensive.

But because I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for topics right now, here’s a rundown of what’s been announced so far (based on the Pop/Rock and Alternative Rock sections of Ticketmaster).

Panic! At The Disco – Death of a Bachelor Tour (February – April 2017)

The opening date of the tour for their latest album just so happens to be my birthday, but the show is in freaking Connecticut. They’re playing the next night in Philly and in Pittsburgh a few days later and I probably can’t even go to either one, but you’re wrong if you don’t think I’ll be salty about it anyway.

Falling in Reverse (January & February 2017)

While I don’t listen to Falling in Reverse, they’re headlining a tour with Motionless in White and Issues. This looks to be a much more emo show, just based on the band picture: lots of black clothes and hair dye, and at least one Nightmare Before Christmas tattoo (sleeve?).

Twenty-Øne Piløts – TWENTY ØNE PILØTS EMØTIØNAL RØADSHØW (January – March 2017)

Who gave the emotions a driver’s licence? Or let them keep it anyway, as this appears to be the indoor leg of their Summer 2016 arena tour. Sidenote: did you know that there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts Center? I didn’t either, but that’s where the tour is opening. It’s in Rhode Island.

Green Day (March & April 2017)

Against Me! is opening for the “Old Man” of the genre’s international tour. International as in they pop up to Canada for about a week (2 shows in Ontario and 2 in Quebec) between their Massachusetts and Pittsburgh shows. But you only need a passport card to get into Canada, so like, does it even count?

Most bands save their tour energy for the summer, and those tours should start being announced around March/April or so. And based on last year’s timing, the emo pilgrimage of Warped Tour should announce dates and lineups towards the end of March.