Fall Out Boy: Ranking Every Album From Worst To Best

"The second you worry about other people’s expectations is the second you can expect failure...We don’t sit around second-guessing everything. If you do that, you’re bound to make sterile music, and that’s when you can expect failure." - Patrick Stump

Consider the above quote Infinity On High's mission statement. Even though the band had experienced a little bit of mainstream affection thanks to the strength of From Under the Cork Tree's dynamite singles, they'd never been put in the position of making an album while inside the mainstream spotlight.

How would they deal with it? Would they anger their diehard fans by significantly expanding their sound? Or would they retain some of their signature guitar-and-drums pop-punk sound? The answer to all of the above: Yes. Because as much as critics at the time decried this as something of a "sellout" record, Infinity On High firmly plays both sides of the fence quite well.

There are still punchy, fast-and-dirty tracks that would be natural follow-ups to TTTYG ('Fame < Infamy', 'The Carpal Tunnel of Love'), but they deftly embrace more rhapsodic, dramatic melodies elsewhere, which sounds like it should result in little more than an entertaining identity crisis.

But somehow, it all gels.

Album Standout: 'This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race'