Album Anniversaries: A Decade Later, Patrick Stump’s ‘Soul Punk’ Deserves A Second Listen

A decade after its release, Patrick Stump’s debut solo album Soul Punk remains a confident critique of corporate greed that defies the conventions of traditional pop music.

Written by Audrey Vieira

Photo courtesy of SPIN

Before 2011, Patrick Stump was primarily known for his work as the mild-mannered lead singer of Fall Out Boy, who shielded his face beneath trucker hats and let bassist Pete Wentz perform the traditional frontman role onstage. Stump rejected the spotlight that shone more on Wentz’s personal life than it did on Fall Out Boy’s music, and his social media presence was minimal in contrast to his bandmates' active engagement on Twitter and MySpace. Stump’s sole controversy of his own was a 2009 arrest made for driving without a valid license.

But as the members of Fall Out Boy went their separate ways and announced an indefinite hiatus, Stump swapped his shy onstage persona for a more confident one, planning to embark on a solo career. No longer hiding behind hats, he lost a significant amount of weight, bleached his hair platnium blonde, and adopted a new wardrobe of brightly colored suits and bow ties. And if his love for Chicago was a crime, “This City,'' the lead single from his debut solo album Soul Punk, would have landed him in jail for the second time, although thankfully, no California laws forbid writing a synthpop love letter to Chicago and sending it out through radio airwaves. The song’s bridge, on which Stump sings, “You can take my picture, you can take my name, but you’re never gonna take my city away,” references his arrest — in addition to the changes Stump made to his physical appearance, as well as his eventual compliance with the law in giving up his Illinois license. 

Despite the minor success of “This City,” and praise from music critics, Soul Punk received little fanfare compared to his work with Fall Out Boy when it breached the music world in 2011. The album sold just 9,000 copies in its first week before falling from the Billboard charts. In an op-ed Stump wrote for Alternative Press, heartbreakingly titled “We Liked You Better Fat,” the singer recalled former fans who preferred his earlier pop punk work to Soul Punk and would go to his solo performances only to tell him “how much [he] sucked without Fall Out Boy.” Although Stump continues to feature on songs with other artists and composes scores for film and television in between tours with Fall Out Boy, he has never released another solo album, with the commercial failure of Soul Punk likely to be the main reason.

Image courtesy of Island Records

However, Soul Punk is a Patrick Stump album, not a Fall Out Boy album, and after 10 years, it deserves to be recognized as such. Listening to Soul Punk and expecting to hear a Fall Out Boy album because of Stump would be like walking into a film scored by Trent Reznor and complaining because the soundtrack didn’t resemble his work with Nine Inch Nails. Soul Punk is not pop punk. It is exactly what it says on the tin — a genre-bending debut album blending Stump’s signature “soul voice” and R&B influences with anti-establishment lyrics and punk attitude.

On top of its genre-fluid nature, the lyricism of Soul Punk has always been relevant. 2011 was not far removed from the 2008 recession, which Stump references multiple times throughout the album. The theme appears most prominently in “Greed,” which opens with a crooning of witty wordplay: “Consumption is consuming me / The laissez hasn’t been fair to me.” Later in the song, Stump chants, “Pop your white collars up!” on a bridge that could make Bernie Madoff roll in his grave. Those lyrics were relevant in 2011, but they have aged like fine wine leading into 2021 amidst a new period of economic depression brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s as bad as I remember and it’s only getting worse,” Stump sings on “Dance Miserable,” another track referencing the 2008 recession and frustration with the government. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of billionaires such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk gaining wealth during a pandemic in which everyday people struggle to make ends meet has only proven Stump’s prediction to be true.

Perhaps if those who wrote off Soul Punk for its lack of Wentz influence had listened with more open minds, they would have noticed how “Dance Miserable,” which also criticizes the rise of right-wing politics with lines mocking “squares in the oval for about eight years,” draws parallels to lyrics denouncing the Bush administration in Fall Out Boy’s 2008 album Folie A Deux. Or maybe they could have come to respect Stump for his impressive talent as a singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist — he recorded everything from drums, guitar, bass, trumpet and synthesizer by himself, all using real instruments in his home studio.

That being said, it is never too late to give Soul Punk another chance. One of the best things about embracing the experimental is being able to mix elements across all types of music into something wholly original and new. Ten years since its debut, there has still never been another Soul Punk, and Stump seems unlikely to ever produce an official follow-up, but hopefully more will come to appreciate the one Soul Punk that does exist in all its genre-bending glory.