2000's Guilt #13: Fall Out Boy “Dance Dance” (2005) / Gym Class Heroes “Cupid’s Chokehold” (2006)

Both songs fell victim to embarrassingly awful videos, especially considering Pete Wentz was a 29-year-old grown human sincerely acting as a high school student without any irony whatsoever. (Michael J Fox, he is not.) We would have posted 2 live videos in order to avoid these embarrassments, except there are no live Gym Class Heroes performances on Youtube with that sideburns dude from FOB, and the "Breakfast In America" chorus is obviously the best part of that song.

"Cupid's Chokehold" was our #17 worst song of 2006, and then our #5 guilty pleasure single of 2007. To an even greater extreme, Fall Out Boy's From Under The Cork Tree was our worst album of 2005, followed by "Dance Dance" as the #1 guilty pleasure single of 2006:

...They are ruining music, whether you believe it or not. In fact, my hatred for this band is drastic enough that it sometimes leads me to claim outrageous opinionated statements that usually end up being true. Here’s an example: "At their best, Limp Bizkit was a better band than FOB ever was." (Okay, I’m reading it over... and... Yeah, that’s true. Wow, imagine that. There’s a band that actually makes me long for Fred Durst’s finer moments.)

This is now questionable... In hindsight, "Dance Dance" (their best song) probably surpasses "Break Stuff" (Limp's best song), but it's hard to say. Moving on...

That bassist with the teeth, Pete Whatshisname, is a very confusing rockstar, and I find it bizarre that the singer for this band was not chosen to be the focal point, another aspect that suggests insincerity. So all of this explains why "Dance Dance" is the guiltiest pleasure of 2006. They somehow managed to produce a near-perfect pop-punk song. And because it’s so shockingly good, it becomes their most Satanic accomplishment. Its video tried so very hard to suggest both fun and rebellion in the same breath, but instead it ended up being anti-fun, tedious, ugly, difficult, and anything but rebellious. It’s a remarkably shitty video, so bad that it distracted more than a few MTV viewers from understanding anything positive about the song it’s promoting. - TMK, 1/17/07