''Mania'' (stylized as ''M A N I A'') is the seventh studio album by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurle ...
, released on January 19, 2018, on
Island Records and
DCD2 as the follow-up to their sixth studio album, ''
American Beauty/American Psycho
''American Beauty/American Psycho'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''AB/AP'') is the sixth studio album by American rock band Fall Out Boy, released on January 16, 2015 through Island Records as the follow-up to the band's comeback album ''Save Ro ...
'' (2015). The album was produced by
Jonny Coffer
Jonathan Coffer (born 8 March 1989) is a multiple Grammy-nominated songwriter and record producer from London. He has written and produced for artists including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Lykke Li, FKA twigs, Naughty Boy, Emeli Sandé, Fall Out ...
,
Illangelo
Carlo Montagnese (born July 29, 1987), known professionally as Illangelo, is a Canadian record producer, songwriter, musician and mixing engineer from Calgary, Alberta, who came to attention as long-time collaborator of the Weeknd. A Grammy Aw ...
,
Dave Sardy
David Stuart Sardy (born 1967), more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning ...
,
Jesse Shatkin
Jesse Samuel Shatkin (born 1979) is an American songwriter, producer and engineer. He has worked with Sia, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Lopez, Fitz and the Tantrums and One Direction, among others. Shatkin was nominated in 2014 for Grammy Awards a ...
, and longtime collaborator
Butch Walker
Bradley Glenn "Butch" Walker (born November 14, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was the lead guitarist for the glam metal band SouthGang from the late 1980s to early 1990s as well as the lead vocalist ...
, as well as self-production from the band. The album sees the group further departing from
pop punk
Pop punk (or punk pop) is a rock music genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined for its emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti- suburbia themes, and is distinguished from other p ...
and
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
sound and having a more "
experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
" approach to their newfound
electro-pop
Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...
sound. The album was preceded by five singles; "
Young and Menace", "
Champion
A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...
", "
The Last of the Real Ones", "
Hold Me Tight or Don't", and "
Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)".
Upon the album release, ''Mania'' received largely mixed reviews from music critics, but fared well commercially, debuting at number-one on the US
''Billboard'' 200. It is the band's first album since their debut studio album, ''
Take This to Your Grave
''Take This to Your Grave'' is the debut studio album by American rock band Fall Out Boy, released on May 6, 2003, by Fueled by Ramen. When the band was signed to Island Records, the label employed an unusual strategy that allowed them to sign ...
'' (2003), to not produce a
''Billboard'' Hot 100 single on the chart. The album was nominated for the category of
Best Rock Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rock Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the rock music genre. Honors in sev ...
at the
61st Annual Grammy Awards
The 61st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 10, 2019, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys hosted. During her opening monologue, Keys brought out Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez, and ...
.
Background
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurle ...
enjoyed commercial success and worldwide acclaim after releasing their sixth studio album, ''
American Beauty/American Psycho
''American Beauty/American Psycho'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''AB/AP'') is the sixth studio album by American rock band Fall Out Boy, released on January 16, 2015 through Island Records as the follow-up to the band's comeback album ''Save Ro ...
'' (2015). During the extensive touring in support of the album, the group began writing and recording material for a seventh album. The beginning of the production process for ''Mania'' began after the band's frontman
Patrick Stump introduced the song "
Young and Menace" to bass guitarist
Pete Wentz
Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III (born June 5, 1979) is an American musician best known as the bassist and lyricist for the rock band Fall Out Boy since 2001. Before Fall Out Boy, Wentz was a fixture of the Chicago hardcore scene and was the lea ...
at
Reading and Leeds Festival
The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. The Reading Fes ...
in 2016, which inspired the musicians to record a full-length. In an interview with ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', Wentz described the vision behind ''Mania''. "It feels like every once in awhile, you've gotta do a hard restart that clears the cache and erases the hard drive. I think that's what
'Mania''was – a big palette cleanse," said Wentz.
After the release of the album's first two singles, "Young and Menace" and "
Champion
A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...
", Patrick Stump issued a statement on Twitter confirming that the band was postponing the release date for ''Mania'' until January 19, 2018 due to the album "feeling rushed."
Album delay
''Mania'' was originally scheduled for a release on September 15, 2017, worldwide. However, on August 3, 2017,
Patrick Stump announced that the record would be pushed back until January 19, 2018. "The album just really isn't ready, and it felt very rushed," Stump said on Twitter. "I'm never going to put a record out I genuinely don't believe is at least as strong or valid as the one that came before it and in order to do that we need a little bit more time to properly and carefully record solid performances."
On November 6, 2017, the band announced on social media that the album had been completed and revealed the tracklist. In the lead up to the album's release, it became evident that several streaming platforms had published the tracks of the album out of order. The physical copies retain the order originally released by the band.
Composition
The album has been described by critics as being
pop,
pop rock
Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, earl ...
,
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
,
and
electropop.
Promotion & The M A N I A Experience
In support of the album, the band has performed the singles on television and has embarked on the
Mania Tour in October 2017. The tour, which takes place in both North America, Australia and New Zealand features support from
blackbear,
Jaden Smith
Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born July 8, 1998), also known mononymously as Jaden, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He has received various accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an MTV Movie Award, a BET Award and a Young Artist ...
, and
Waax. The song "Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)", was debuted live on October 20, 2017, as part of the Mania Tour's setlist.
To promote their headlining gig at Wrigley Field, M A N I A, as well as their then-just-release EP, "Lake Effect Kid", the band held a pop-up event in Chicago, IL titled "The M A N I A Experience." The M A N I A Experience, according to the band, was the analog to the album. It featured many rooms named after songs from the record, including "Wilson," a dimly-lit jungle with the lyrics "I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color" on the wall; "Sunshine Riptide," which featured a ball pit with pills and pill bottles with the FOB logo on them, and had "The pills are kicking in" on the wall; Room three was titled "Give Me a Boost", taken from their song "Heaven's Gate." This room was unique as it had headphones for fans to listen to unreleased tracks and remixes, including one version of a song sang by Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. Each set of headphones had a different song that fans could listen to. The room also featured warped mirrors on the wall, as well as spinning faceless ballerinas and a broken music box with the lyrics "One look from you and I'm on that faded love out of my body, and I'm flying up above." The washroom in the facility was also FOB-themed and had posters for their album as well as strands of yarn on the mirrors for fans to take a picture with, a homage to the artwork for their EP "Lake Effect Kid." Room four was "Young and Menace"-themed, and was upside-down. Fans also had the opportunity to listen to music with headphones while feeling upside down. Room five was "Church"-themed, and had gothic themed curtains surrounding a coffin. The coffin was a mirror that had the effect of making it look endless. Room six was in the theme of "HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T," with loads of teddybears of various sizes. There was also a room in which Pete Wentz, as well as Andy Hurley, would be in a box writing with headphones on with a sign that read: "Don't Tap on The Glass," which is a reference to their song "Sunshine Riptide." This room also referenced "Church." where fans could write on the wall "confessing their sins."
Llamania
During recording sessions for ''Mania'', the band scrapped three unfinished tracks; "Past Life", "Wrong Side of Paradise", and "Footprints in the Snow". The tracks were released by Fall Out Boy, under the alias Frosty & The Nightmare Making Machines, in the form of an extended play (EP), entitled ''
Llamania
''Llamania'' is an exclusive three-track extended play (EP) by fictional musical group Frosty and the Nightmare Making Machine, released on February 23, 2018, by Mania Corp. The fictitious band consists of the fictional members Frosty and Royal Te ...
'', on February 23, 2018, through physical CD and vinyl.
Singles
The lead single, "
Young and Menace", was released on April 27, 2017 alongside its music video. The song has a notable influence from the
EDM
EDM or E-DM may refer to:
Music
* Electronic dance music
* Early Day Miners, American band
Science and technology
* Electric dipole moment
* Electrical discharge machining
* Electronic distance measurement
*Entry, Descent, and landing demonstrat ...
genre, hinting at another progression of the band's sound with the album. The second single, "
Champion
A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...
", was released on June 22 in the U.S. and on June 23 worldwide with the “visualizer” music video. On July 27, the official music video was released for the song. The third single, "
The Last of the Real Ones", was released on September 14, 2017. The fourth single, "
Hold Me Tight or Don't", was released on November 15 with its music video, which takes a notable influence from the Mexican holiday Day Of The Dead. "
Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)" was released as the fifth single, accompanied with its music video premiere on January 11, 2018. A music video for "Church" was released along with the album on January 19, 2018. On July 23, 2018, a music video for "Bishops Knife Trick" was released.
Critical reception
''Mania'' received mixed reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 59 based on 12 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Commercial performance
''Mania'' debuted at number one on the US
''Billboard'' 200 on February 3, 2018 with 130,000
album-equivalent unit
The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditio ...
s, of which 117,000 were pure album sales.
It is Fall Out Boy's fourth US number-one album.
In Nielsen's mid-year music chart for 2018, ''Mania'' was the number three rock album in both equivalent units and sales, with 233,000 equivalent units including 162,000 pure sales.
Track listing
Upon its initial release to several digital music retailers, the order of the track listing was incorrect. The band later confirmed that the track listing on the physical releases was correct across all versions of the release and that these would soon be corrected.
Notes
*
– additional production
* Additional production and engineering on all songs by Fall Out Boy
* "Hold Me Tight or Don't" is stylised in
all caps
In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in l ...
.
Personnel
Personnel adapted from
Tidal
Tidal is the adjectival form of tide.
Tidal may also refer to:
* ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple
* Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim
* TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music
* Tidal (servic ...
and the CD back cover.
Fall Out Boy
*
Patrick Stump – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, additional programming, percussion
*
Joe Trohman
Joseph Mark Trohman (born September 1, 1984) is an American musician, singer, and record producer. He is best known as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of the American rock band Fall Out Boy,Joe Bosso.The Fall Guy. ''Guitar World''. Janua ...
– lead guitar, backing vocals, lap steel, additional programming, keyboards
*
Pete Wentz
Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III (born June 5, 1979) is an American musician best known as the bassist and lyricist for the rock band Fall Out Boy since 2001. Before Fall Out Boy, Wentz was a fixture of the Chicago hardcore scene and was the lea ...
– bass guitar, backing vocals
*
Andy Hurley
Andrew John Hurley (born May 31, 1980) is an American musician. He is the drummer for the rock band Fall Out Boy. Prior to Fall Out Boy, Hurley played in several hardcore punk bands. He joined Fall Out Boy as the full-time drummer in 2003 and ...
– drums, percussion
Production
*
Jesse Shatkin
Jesse Samuel Shatkin (born 1979) is an American songwriter, producer and engineer. He has worked with Sia, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Lopez, Fitz and the Tantrums and One Direction, among others. Shatkin was nominated in 2014 for Grammy Awards a ...
– production, mixing
*
Butch Walker
Bradley Glenn "Butch" Walker (born November 14, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was the lead guitarist for the glam metal band SouthGang from the late 1980s to early 1990s as well as the lead vocalist ...
– production
* Andrew Wells – production
*
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurle ...
– primary production
*
Suzy Shinn – engineering
* Rouble Kapoor – assistant engineering
*
Dave Sardy
David Stuart Sardy (born 1967), more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning ...
– mixing, producer
* David Andersen – assistant engineer
;Management
* Dustin Addis – management
* Jonathan Daniel – management
* Bob McLynn – management
* Evan Taubenfeld – A&R
* Elizabeth Vago – A&R administration
* Marlene Tsuchii – booking
* Mark Ngui – booking
* Andrew Simon – booking
* Marcia Hyman – business management
* Michael L. Mckoy – legal
* Sharon Timure – marketing
* Vol. S. Davis III – business affairs
* Ian Allen – business affairs
* Antoinette Trotman – business affairs
* Cindy Zaplachinski – business affairs
Artwork
*
Pete Wentz
Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III (born June 5, 1979) is an American musician best known as the bassist and lyricist for the rock band Fall Out Boy since 2001. Before Fall Out Boy, Wentz was a fixture of the Chicago hardcore scene and was the lea ...
– art direction
* Pamela Littky – photography
* Brendan Walter – layout designer
* Jade Ehlers – layout designer
* Kaitlin Sweet – illustrations
* Matt Burnette-Lemon – package production
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mania
2018 albums
Fall Out Boy albums
Island Records albums
Albums produced by Illangelo
Albums produced by Dave Sardy
Albums produced by Butch Walker
Electropop albums
DCD2 Records albums