Music always finds a way to reinvent itself at the beginning of each new year, but change is not always brought upon by new talent.
Sometimes it takes a few familiar faces to rattle the charts. Reunion tours and albums can reshape the image, sound and fan base of a band.
So far this year, Fall Out Boy, The Postal Service and Fleetwood Mac have all announced reunion tours or albums for 2013.
Fall Out Boy has not released an album since 2008’s “Folie a Deux,” which preceded its four-year hiatus. During this time off, lead singer Patrick Stump released a solo album titled “Soul Punk,” touring nationally in 2011.
The drummer Andy Hurley and guitarist Joe Trohman joined Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley in a super group called The Damned Things. This band also released an album and toured nationally.
Bassist Pete Wentz took time to work with his record label Decaydance Records and his clothing line under Clandestine Industries.
The band finally reunited this year, releasing a single titled “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)” and announced an album to be released May 7. The single is an unusual style for the band, long time fan Rob Pellecchia said.
“It’s different from them,” Pellecchia (freshman-accounting) said. “That’s what you have to expect. Bands don’t stay the same.”
Fall Out Boy was one of the first major pop-punk bands to break into the Top 40 charts when they first began and it has already sold out a national tour. The band is likely to change the genre with its new album, Pellecchia said.
“I think they’re going to incorporate all of their old albums and come out with a new album for the pop punk style,” Pellecchia said.
The Postal Service is an indie-electronic super duo formed around the vocal mastery of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard . The band’s only album, “Give Up,” was released in 2003 and met huge success.
The album sold 500,000 copies by 2005 and the band began work on a second album. The album was never finished as each member began to refocus on other projects. The band has not released anything or played any shows since then.
Once rumors began to form of a reunion, the band was very secretive about its status until they randomly announced tour dates on their website. With no confirmation of new music in the future, the band suddenly released a song titled “A Tattered Line of String,” a new and unusually upbeat track for the band’s usual gloomy simplicity.
Although a second album is highly anticipated, the band’s members have too much to do already with their other projects, Gibbard said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“The anticipation of the second record has been a far bigger deal for everybody except the two of us,” Gibbard said.
New music remains unclear for The Postal Service in the future.
The oldest and perhaps most exciting band to remerge is Fleetwood Mac. This 60s rock band had changed members several times before their peak in the seventies with the release of the album “Rumours.” The album brought the band to vast fame in England and the United States.
Fleetwood Mac has recently re-released “Rumours” in a re-mastered, three-disk deluxe edition. The set features several live tracks and unreleased versions of old hits.
The band has followed the release with the announcement of national tour dates for 2013. To veteran fans, this is exciting news, Chris Esposito said.
“When I heard Fleetwood Mac was getting back together, I almost cried,” Esposito (sophomore-print journalism) said. “Growing up, my dad frequently put on Fleetwood and we would jam out in the car wherever we went.”
As for new music, rumors of new tracks and recordings are circulating, but no members have confirmed a new album. Fans can only hope for new music, Esposito said.
“I'd be for it,” Esposito said. “It's hard to imagine they could've lost their magic.”
