Count Chicago emo king Fall Out Boy among the latter. Bassist Pete Wentz—who's also the pop-punk band's lyricist, leader and camera-magnet pretty boy—makes no bones about his ambition: "I want to create a culture people are interested in." The success of Fall Out Boy's last album, Under the Cork Tree, has given Wentz and Co. a stage big enough to pursue that goal. Cork Tree connected with 2.5 million consumers and paved the way for another chart topper, Infinity on High.

The punk quartet's success in an increasingly fickle music market can be partially attributed to its MySpace ethos. Whereas rock stars of the past often cultivated celebrity via larger-than-life ("Can't Touch This") personalities, Wentz in particular embodies a new kind of openness and accessibility. He epitomizes a generation that's grown accustomed to baring its most intimate musings (not to mention compromising pictures) online.

In a recent response to an interviewer's query about which drugs could be found in his system, for example, Wentz rattled off a list of prescription meds that would make a psychiatrist blanch: "I'm out of Ambien [a sleep aid]. But you'd find Lorazepam [a sedative], which is basically Xanax; Flexiril, which is a muscle relaxant; Seroquel [an antipsychotic]; and I think there would probably be Zoloft [an antidepressant] in there. I told you, I'm the drugstore cowboy."

Infinity ... on Low?
Wentz's casual comments about his well-medicated life open a telling window into Fall Out Boy's world—inside which, hook-heavy anthems careen into and contrast with a bleak outlook on life. Emotion simmers beneath the surface of Infinity's 14 tracks. And it's processed through filters of sarcasm, irony, anger and angst—yielding indulgently clever titles such as "The (After) Life of the Party" and "The Carpal Tunnel of Love."

Wentz has a virtually bottomless appetite for puns. Yet his dark sense of humor can't mask the pain beneath. One of the album's recurring themes is soulless sex between people whose relationships have no future. A divorced husband and wife still have "conjugal visits" on "Take Over, the Breaks Over," though they apparently hide this aspect of their relationship ("We do it in the dark/With smiles on our faces/We're dropped and well-concealed/In secret places"). Likewise, "Thnks fr th Mmrs" details a man's last fling with a former girlfriend who's already having sex with someone else. "Bang the Doldrums" cuts to the chase: "Best friends/ex-friends to the end/Better off as lovers/And not the other way around."

That inability to maintain relationships translates into anger and despair elsewhere. "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" uses the word "g--d--ned" a dozen times before lead singer Patrick Stump concludes, "I wrote the gospel of giving up." On "I'm Like a Lawyer With the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me and You)," a man who apparently has sex but not love in his marriage numbs his heart to stave off suicidal thoughts. He suggests that "the best way to make it through/With hearts and wrists intact/Is to realize two out of three ain't bad." Another song with a long-winded title, "I've Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None on My Fingers" twists itself into knots trying to hint at death and possibly suicide ("You're a canary/I'm a coalmine/'Cause sorrow is all the rage. ... Tell the boys where to find my body").

A Glass (at Least) Half Empty
Amid this emotional desert, a few tracks exhibit moments of self-awareness. "The (After) Life of the Party" and "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" question whether Hollywood-style glitz and glamour can lead to genuine purpose. "You're Crashing, But You're No Wave" condemns an unjust legal system. "Golden" recalls the emptiness of Wentz's adolescence ("The sewage of youth/Drowns the spark of my teens"), expresses ambivalence about fame and criticizes superficiality using a biblical allusion ("How cruel is the Golden Rule/When the lives we live are only golden plated?").

Interestingly, that song also describes an empathetic, personal God ("And I saw God cry in the reflection of my enemies"). And it prompted one reporter to ask Wentz about his spiritual beliefs. "I don't know where I stand about God," the bassist replied. "I want God to exist when I need Him. To me, God's the ultimate crisis counselor—I want to be able to call up 1-800-HEAVEN and make sure my plane doesn't crash! So I think about whether or not He exists. [Infinity on High] is not a religious record of any kind, but ... I don't want this to be all. I don't go to church or believe in God particularly, but I really hope that there's a place for me."

Wentz deserves some credit for thinking about God at all. But even he admits that the glass of his spiritual beliefs stands mostly empty. Thus, appreciation for his isolated insights is simply overwhelmed by the fact that there's barely a positive thing to say about his narcissistic vision of relationships.

All in all, Fall Out Boy's brand of emo stylishly strip mines the soul's depths and refines its raw material into self-absorbed songs long on bitterness. Clever irony fused with infectious riffs might provide temporary (and false) catharsis for equally jaded listeners. But once you get beyond the cotton-candy appeal of the band's self-congratulatory witticisms, all that's really left are "Bd Mmrs nd Wrs Advc."