Right before Chicago’s Fall Out Boy (FOB) released their last album, the band released another single from American Beauty/American Psycho. Unlike the previous tracks on this new album, “Irresistible” is true to original FOB sound, which captures their pop punk sound from their early albums.
The song opens with a chorus of brass instruments and Patrick Stump singing over a bass drum that leads into full use of the band’s instruments. Eventually, the song drops into Stump backed with just a piano, which may remind a lot of FOB fans of some of their songs from 2007’s Infinity on High. The track is catchy in classic FOB style, but like many of the songs from this album, it has a gritty edge to it.
Stump croons “And I love the way you hurt me it’s irresistible / Ooh ooh oh oh oh ho yeah / Ooh ooh oh oh oh ho yeah” throughout the chorus of the song. Unlike the previous singles from the album, this one focuses more on Stump’s voice. The song itself tells the story of a dangerous love and even references the love shared by Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, which can be considered a pop culture and cult film reference like the title of the album itself. The song isn’t very complicated in its instrumentation, but that’s what makes the song so catchy.
The brass from the opening remains constant in the background of the song, and it’s mixed with a steady but simple drum pattern. While the song does feature the other instruments, it mainly relies on the piano, drums and the brass ensemble from the opening. Though during the one minute mark of the song, the listener gets a steady mix of the other instruments before the brass ensemble comes back in full force. The song moves from using the brass ensemble to the full band sound, which weaves seamlessly throughout the song. It gives the song a different but very large sound, and it works for this track. Like in previous songs, FOB keeps their sound simple, but it still has multiple layers to it.