Here's one of those things that has been bothering me for years, even though it doesn't actually matter even a little bit: Pete Wentz is not the frontman of Fall Out Boy, and yet he acts like he is. Wentz is the band's bassist and lyricist. He's made himself the band's public face. And yet singer/guitarist Patrick Stump, who's always been content to play the background, is the reason anyone likes that band. He writes the band's music, which is so much more important to their success than the lyrics. And he's secretly got one of the best white-soul voices out there.
Stump's high, muscular howl belongs somewhere in the Michael McDonald lineage. He sounds like he's got music bursting out of his chest, like he can barely contain or direct it. During one recent-ish Fall Out Boy hiatus, he released an album called Soul Punk, which is better than it had any right to be. And now he's shown off his pipes by covering another white soul singer, Ariana Grande.
On SiriusXM this morning, Stump did a solo-acoustic take on "No Tears Left To Cry," Grande's massive summer single. That's not a song that really lends itself to the solo-acoustic-dude format, and yet Stump wails the living hell out of it. It's pretty impressive! Here, listen:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3ZoSWqwoL7k
Don't try this at home.
